


oblivious

by ronances



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, best friends to lovers au, unrequited love... OR IS IT?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25512559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronances/pseuds/ronances
Summary: being in love with your best friend,she thinks,is just about the worst fate that could befall a person.[or, a mileven best friends-to-lovers au]
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 96
Kudos: 165





	1. prologue: movie night

Summer evenings in Hawkins carry their own kind of magic.

There's something about the sweet, fresh scent of the air; the golden hue that everything takes on as the sun sets; the way that the cool breeze subdues the lingering heat.

That same breeze plays with El Hopper's hair as she walks; gentle enough that it doesn't upset the delicate curls she spent an hour on earlier today, but not enough that they don't slightly frizz up. When she notices this on the reflection of her phone after reaching Mike's house, it's right as she's about to knock on his front door.

 _Dammit,_ she thinks, and smooths the flyaways as best as she can. It doesn't do much.

The door opens suddenly, and it's _him,_ and El feels herself blush, and _shit,_ her hand's still on her hair. Awkwardly, she brings it back down to her side.

"Hey," grins Mike Wheeler. She doesn't know whether she should be infuriated or relieved that his gaze just barely sweeps over the outfit and hairstyle she spent so much time over before locking firmly on her eyes.

"How'd you know I was here?" she asks.

Mike shrugs and steps aside to let her in. "I guess I'm just a little psychic that way."

"He saw you through the kitchen window," comes Lucas's voice from the basement. El turns around to level Mike with a playful glare as they walk down the stairs.

"Psychic," she repeats drily. He just smiles that shit-eating grin of his in response.

"There's nothing I can do about non-believers," he replies.

All she can do is roll her eyes and fight her own smile, because Max is here too, watching them closely, and she just _knows_ her friend is going to have something to say about how she looks today.

 _It's written all over her face,_ El thinks in dismay as she joins Max on the couch.

"Hi," she says. Max's expression is annoyingly smug.

"Nice outfit," she says. "And hair. And is that makeup?"

El glares daggers at her before turning quickly to glance at Lucas and Mike where they're setting up the TV for movie night. Neither of them give any indication of having heard Max, and El lets out a small sigh of relief. "Shut up," she tells her friend.

Max rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. "You're both so obvious that it's physically painful to watch."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," El mutters, but she knows that the blush on her cheeks gives her away. Before Max can comment on that, too, she decides to change the subject. "Do you know what movie we're watching today?"

"Probably a horror," Max replies, generously allowing the subject to change. "I think Will wanted to watch _The Ring._ "

"What?" El says. "You all know I can't do horror."

"That's fine, El, if you get too scared you can always just cuddle up with Mi—" Max begins, but El slaps a hand over her mouth before she can finish.

"I swear to God," she says, as threateningly as she can manage, "if you don't shut up about that, I'll braid your veins."

Max looks unimpressed. Which figures, because, well, El isn't that intimidating.

The door to the basement opens and down the stairs plod Will and Dustin. Lucas and Mike both look up and nod at them, almost eerily in sync, and Dustin goes to join them where they're fiddling with the TV. Will, who has never much been one for electronics the way the other three are, makes his way over to El and Max instead.

"Hey," he says, and plops down next to Max. "What'd Max say to piss you off this time?"

El belatedly realizes that her hand is still over Max's mouth and drops it. "Don't worry about it. Are we really watching _The Ring_ tonight? I _told_ you guys no scary movies."

Lucas turns around and holds up the DVD in question. "Sorry, El. Majority rules."

"What the _fuck,_ " she seethes, but no one pays her any mind. Like she said, she isn't that intimidating.

But Mike turns around after a second and catches her eye. "You can sit with me if you get scared, El. I'll tell you when to close your eyes."

El valiantly tries to ignore not only Max and Will exchanging a look next to her, but also the butterflies in her stomach. "Thanks, Mike," she says softly.

He offers her a crooked smile. "What are friends for?" he says, before turning around again.

His words cut at her heart, but his smile floods her with warmth. Through it all, she manages to glare at Max and Will next to her. _"Not a word."_

Max makes an exaggerated motion of zipping her lips as Will shakes with silent laughter beside her. And, you know, it would bother El less if they weren't so right.

Because here's the thing.

El _likes_ Mike. And she has for a _while._ And sometimes it feels like everyone in the entire world _except_ him knows.

She watches, almost in a daze, as he gets up from in front of the TV, it finally being set up, and walks over to the blanket fort at the corner of the basement. That's where they keep all the blankets and pillows for movie night. Sometime in the last five minutes, Dustin went upstairs, and has just returned with his arms full of snacks. He sets them down on the coffee table and claims his regular spot next to Will on the floor. Max has gravitated to the lone armchair, and Lucas has settled down at the foot of it, his head in her lap. Which leaves El by herself on the couch, nerves aflame in anticipation of Mike joining her.

He emerges from the fort, arms loaded with blankets and pillows, and walks over to Will and Dustin first. They reach up and claim theirs, before Mike makes his way to Lucas and Max. Lucas flicks off the lamp as Mike drops the remaining blanket by El on the couch. Someone presses play and the movie starts, but El isn't paying attention to that.

She feels rather than sees Mike settle in to the left of her; the cushion dips a bit with his weight and the blanket shifts as he pulls it over himself. His arm moves to slip behind her, hand coming to rest on her right shoulder.

"Hey," he whispers, head ducking a bit so that his mouth is next to her ear. El tries not to shiver.

"Hey," she responds softly.

When he gently pulls her closer, so that there's no space between them anymore and her head can fall onto his shoulder, she silently thanks whatever powers that may be that it's too dark for him to notice her blush.

His proximity is somehow familiar and comforting while also setting her heart alight. Being this close to him sends her mind into a whirlwind. Fragments of thoughts zip frantically around, her mind malfunctioning at the feeling of his hair tickling her ear, the way she can feel his torso rise and fall with each breath, his fingers absently tracing unknown shapes on her shoulder.

It's so easy to melt into him. It's so easy to pretend right now that his arm around her isn't just him being an affectionate friend. That he's more than just her best friend since childhood. _So easy_ to imagine that he sees her as more than that. No, in this quiet, dark moment, Mike can be more. _They_ can be more.


	2. what are friends for?

It’s Dustin who speaks first once the movie ends. It always is.

“Fuck, dude,” he says, running a tired hand over his face. “That was…” 

Will reaches for the remote and turns the TV off. “Wasn’t it good?” he says giddily. 

The basement is abruptly plunged into light. Lucas has turned a lamp on. There’s a chorus of disgruntled noises as they all try to adjust.

“Movie was good,” Max says, “but I don’t think we should’ve watched it at night.”

“I know,” Mike replies. “I’m not going to be sleeping tonight.”

Max laughs. “Well, someone certainly is,” she says, pointing to his right. Mike looks down.

El is fast asleep on his shoulder, and it’s just about the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

“Fucksake, it’s not even late,” Dustin scoffs. 

“Shut up, Dustin, you might wake her up.” Mike tells him. He looks at El on his shoulder, then back up at Max, perplexed. “What do I do?”

But she doesn’t look like she’s going to be any help. They’re all doing that weird thing again—the one where they all exchange a _look,_ like they know something Mike doesn’t. He’s asked about it, multiple times, but never gotten a clear answer. “What?” he asks testily.

Lucas turns to look at him, eyes sympathetic. “Listen, man—”

Before he can continue, his girlfriend breaks in. “You know, it really is getting late. I think we all should be heading home.”

“Huh?” Mike begins, more than confused now. “You can’t just leave me like this—”

“—no, no, Max is right,” Dustin speaks over him. He pushes himself up to his feet and offers a hand to Will below him. “Sorry, man, my mom’s probably worried.”

“Mine too,” Will adds as he gets up. Max and Lucas have already made their way to the stairs hand in hand, leaving Will and Dustin to hurriedly join them. 

“Guys, wait, you can’t—” Mike tries, but none of them except Lucas spare him another glance. 

“Good night, man,” he says, grinning much too deviously for Mike’s liking. He doesn’t stick around, and before he knows it, Mike is alone in his basement, El still soundly asleep on his shoulder. What the fuck is he supposed to do now?

Years of having sleepovers together remind him that she’s a heavy sleeper. Sometimes it takes nothing short of dousing her in ice-cold water to get her to wake up (something he knows from experience). And he really just doesn’t have the heart to disentangle himself from her right now, given how deeply she appears to be sleeping.

Mike takes a moment to just look at her.

In sleep, he’s noticed, people look different. More open. El is no different. Her face is smooth and relaxed, slack in a way that’s uncharacteristic of her. Usually she’s vibrant and expressive and presents her heart unabashedly.

Without warning, her face suddenly contorts and she lets out a yawn. Her head on his shoulder shifts as she buries her face in the sleeve of his shirt before she seems to realize her surroundings.

“Mike?” she draws back and looks up at him. Her eyes are squinty and her voice groggy.

“Hey,” he says dumbly. Hopefully his face isn’t as red as he thinks it might be.

“What—did I fall asleep?” she asks while yawning again.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Sorry,” she says, looking away from him. “What time is it?”

“About eleven,” he replies. He holds up his phone to show her. El cringes.

“That’s not even that late, I don’t know why I fell asleep,” she says. 

“Forget _why,_ I don’t know _how_ you fell asleep,” Mike laughs. “Was the movie that boring to you?”

El shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t boring. I was just… warm and comfy. So.”

Mike doesn’t know what to say to that, so he stays quiet. There are a few awkward moments of silence before she blinks and removes the blanket. 

“I think I’ll head home now,” she says softly. Mike nods and throws her a smile.

“I’ll walk you up,” he says, getting up with her. She smiles back at him and they walk up the stairs.

They haven’t even reached the top step when they hear them.

_“Jesus Christ, Karen, do you ever shut up?”_

_“I’ll shut up when you listen to me for once in our marriage, Ted—”_

Mike feels his heart drop. El turns to look at him. “Mike—”

A sick feeling twists its way through him. He doesn’t meet her eyes. “Uh, you can just leave through the basement door, come on—”

“No,” she says firmly, and grasps his wrist when he doesn’t look at her. “Do you want me to spend the night?” 

Mike swallows. He doesn’t have to say anything for her to understand. She just reads the look in his eyes.

“I’ll call my dad. Go set up the sleeping bags.”

There’s a reason why she’s his best friend, after all. 

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

“Hey, Dad?” El says when the call connects.

_“El? What’s up?”_

“We had movie night tonight,” she says. “At Mike’s? And we just ended, and I don’t really want to walk home with how late it is, so could I sleep over?”

_“Can’t he drive you home?”_

“You know he doesn’t have his license yet,” she explains patiently. “And I know you’re working late tonight. I’ll sleep over and walk home in the morning.”

Hopper lets out a sigh on his end, and El knows she’s won him over. _“Don’t stay up too late. I want you home tomorrow by ten.”_

“Okay! Thanks, love you, bye,” she chirps before hanging up. She turns back to look at Mike, a smile on her face, but she quickly sobers up. 

He’s sitting on their rolled out sleeping bags, and his face is pinched in the way it always is when he’s upset. She sits down next to him. “Hey.”

He blinks and turns to look at her. “Hey.”

She nudges him with her shoulder. “Do you want to talk?”

He screws up his lips. “I don’t know. I just—” he stops mid-sentence and looks up at the stairs. El follows his gaze and feels her heart drop a little. Holly, clutching her teddy bear, stands in the doorway.

“Hey, Holls,” Mike says. He tries for a smile, but it looks like it’s the last thing he wants to be doing. 

“Are you guys having a sleepover?” Holly asks in a small voice.

“Yeah, do you want to join us?” El beckons her over. Holly hesitates for just a moment before hopping down the stairs. She crawls in between Mike and El and plops herself down on the sleeping bag. Mike smiles at his sister, and El is glad to see that this time, it isn’t nearly as forced.

“Are you gonna get me PJ’s?” she asks him wryly, motioning to her clothes. Mike shakes his head.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I’ll be right back,” he says, and goes up the stairs to fetch her clothes.

El looks down at Holly. “Hey, Holls, how are you?”

Holly doesn’t meet her eyes. “Okay.”

“Are you sure?” El presses gently. She’s been around for Holly’s entire life. At this point, they’re like sisters. El knows how to read her.

“I don’t know,” Holly admits. “I don’t like how much they’re fighting.” Tears begin to pool in her eyes, and El immediately scoops her into a hug.

“Aw, Holls, I’m sorry they keep doing that,” she murmurs, rubbing soothing circles on the little girl’s back. Holly doesn’t say anything back but leans further into El. They’re both quiet for a few moments.

God, does it hurt El’s heart to see Mike and Holly like this. She’s known the Wheeler family for twelve years at this point, and while Karen and Ted never had the best relationship, things between them have reached a boiling point over the past few months. She can see how much it tears at their kids, and she hates how helpless she is against it.

The door to the basement opens abruptly, and Mike trods down the steps two at a time. Unceremoniously, he tosses a folded pair of clothes in El’s direction before storming off to the blanket fort.

 _Ohhh-kay,_ El thinks, staring after him. She’ll deal with him later. For now, she has to change and brush her teeth, and Holly is growing heavier against her. El leans back a little so she can look the younger girl in the face, and sees that she’s just about fallen asleep. She gently pries her off and lays her down inside the sleeping bag.

El picks up the clothes Mike brought her and walks over to the bathroom. They’re some old ones of his, and when she pulls them on, they carry a very distinct Mike scent. She inhales a lungful and can’t help but smile at the comforting mix of mint and fresh linen and something sweet. She brushes her teeth, quickly, using the one that he reserved for her in a small box in the cabinet under the sink.

After, El gathers up her clothes and drops them off at the couch before turning to the blanket fort. She walks over and drops onto her knees before parting the overhanging blanket. Mike is on his back, his hands clasped behind his head. He doesn’t look at her.

She crawls in anyway, and lies down next to him. He doesn’t acknowledge her, but she knows him well enough to be sure he’ll talk when he’s ready.

And he does, after a few minutes of silence.

“Sorry for being a dick,” he mutters, not taking his eyes off the roof of the fort. El turns on her side so she can look at him.

“It’s okay,” she replies. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” he says, but she can tell that he does from the way he steals a glance at her before looking back up again.

“Are you sure?”

Mike sighs and turns so that he’s facing her now. Anguish is written clearly across his face, and all she wants to do is pull him close to her, let him know that she’s there for him, even if his parents aren’t. 

But she doesn’t do that. She just inclines her head slightly, letting him know she’s listening.

“They’re just. They’re _always_ fighting,” he whispers. His voice wobbles a bit, and he doesn’t look like the seventeen-year-old he is, but much younger. Much more lost. “And they don’t even _try_ anymore, either, that’s the worst part,” he goes on, his voice picking up steam, “they don’t seem to give a single shit about their relationship anymore. Or even me and Holly. They used to try to keep it hidden from us. They don’t do that anymore.”

“Mike,” El says softly. A few tears slip unbidden from his eyes and she wipes them away with care. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he scoffs in a thick voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s theirs.”

“Mike,” she says again. He finally looks her in the eye, and she almost gasps at the intensity there. This side of him doesn’t often present itself, but when it does, it almost scares her. If looks could kill, the one he’s wearing right now would’ve ended her in seconds. She knows it isn’t directed at her, but it doesn’t stop her from flinching a little.

“God, and they even made Holly cry,” he mutters angrily, still in his own world. “I can’t stand them. I can’t stand living with them.”

She stays silent as his chest heaves with deep breaths. Watches as the anger dissipates from him gradually like air from a poked tire. After a minute, he rolls onto his back again and runs a hand down his face. “Sorry, I know I kind of yelled at you,” he says quietly. 

“It’s fine,” she says sincerely. “It is. You know I’m always here for you. I’d rather you tell me all this than keep it bottled up inside.”

“What did I do to deserve you?” he replies. She looks over to find him staring at her and tries not to blush.

“Stop it,” she scoffs. 

“No, I mean it,” he says, looking at her square in the eyes. “I don’t know what I did to get this lucky. You’re the best best friend, El.”

Her heart sinks at that, but she plasters on a smile. “You make it easy.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “No, I don’t. I know I don’t.”

“You do,” she insists patiently. He shakes his head.

“Whatever, El. But you know I’d do the same for you, right? You can tell me anything.”

Her gaze drops to his lips instinctively. “Anything?” she whispers.

His forehead wrinkles in confusion. “Yeah, of course.”

For a moment, she almost blurts out what’s on the tip of her tongue: _I like you, not in a friend way, but in a I want to hold your hand and be your girlfriend kind of way, and I really hope you feel the same, which I won’t know until I tell you, but also you’re my best friend and I don’t want to ruin our friendship—_

“El?” Mike says, frowning. “What is it?”

She closes her mouth and shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?” he asks doubtfully.

 _No._ “Yeah, no, I’m sure,” she says, throwing in a smile for good measure. He seems to buy it, and sits up with a yawn.

“Do you really want to sleep with Holly?” he asks, wincing.

“God, no,” El sighs. “She’s a kicker.”

Mike grins. “So… blanket fort it is, then?”

“I’m in if you are,” she says.

Fifteen minutes later, after they’ve brought over their pillows and blankets, Mike is half-asleep, but El lies awake. The night’s events run through her head over and over like a torturous movie reel. She turns away from Mike, hoping it’ll make it easier to sleep, but that way, she faces the glare of moonlight coming from the basement window. She turns again, and Mike is looking at her confusedly.

In a groggy voice, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she whispers. “Go back to sleep.”

Even in his dreamy state, he senses her lie. With an annoyed huff, his arm reaches out and pulls her to him. “If you wanted to cuddle, you could’ve just asked.”

“I never wanted—” she tries to protest, but he pulls her even closer, until her nose is in the crook of his neck.

“Shhh,” he says, and yawns. “You know you do. Good night, El.”

“Good night, Mike,” she says softly. He only squeezes her shoulder in response and she just wants to scream.

 _Being in love with your best friend,_ she thinks, _is just about the worst fate that could befall a person._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiii i just wanted to say thank u for all the kind feedback on the first chapter, it means a lot to me <3 as always, kudos and comments are very much appreciated because they're really the only way i know people are liking this. let me know what you thought !!


	3. a trip down memory lane

A few days later, Max and El are in Max’s room, on their backs on the floor as they stare up at the ceiling. Some song plays faintly from Max’s record player, and the scent of paint from the art they were making earlier permeates the room.

Since freshman year, it’s been a tradition for El and Max to have a sleepover the night before the first day of school. This year it’s especially bittersweet.

“Our last year in high school,” El says, breaking the amicable silence they’ve been maintaining for the last few minutes. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” Max sighs. “Not at all. I don’t want it to end.”

“Me either,” El groans. “Not because I want to stay here forever,” she quickly amends. “But… I don’t want to worry about college, or moving away, or—”

“Shut up already,” gripes Max. “It’s girls’ night. We aren’t talking about things like that today.”

“Sorry,” El sighs. “I’m just anxious.”

“Well, don’t be,” Max replies unhelpfully. “Anyway, this is boring. Let’s go do something.”

“Like what?”

Max sits up and leans against her bed, looking up as she thinks. Her eyes suddenly light up. “Hey, I was going through my attic the other day and I found a bunch of old pictures,” she says excitedly. “Why don’t we look through them?”

“Sure,” El replies gamely. Max gets to her feet and walks over to her closet. It’s a cramped walk-in, but it makes up for its small size in just how _Max_ it is. From where El is still lying on the floor, she can see clearly into it. The summer before sophomore year, on a whim, Max repainted its walls to a bright orange, and El figures that must have been the last time it was organized, too. It offends El as a neat-freak to see how messy Max’s closet is, but Max won’t let her near it. She’s always able to find exactly what she needs, despite the clothes strewn all over its floor and stuffed carelessly onto its shelves. This time is no exception.

Max emerges with a stack of shoeboxes, then sets them down next to El. With eager hands, they each grab a box and dig through its contents.

El’s box is full of old pictures from back when Max lived in California. “You were so cute,” El coos, holding a particularly embarrassing photo of a younger Max at the beach. “What happened?”

Max flips her off without looking up. “You know, I wouldn’t be so patronizing if I were you,” she says. El looks up. Max is wearing an ugly smirk, the one that El knows after years of friendship always means trouble.

“Remember your grunge phase?” she says, and holds up a photo. El snatches it away from Max in horror.

“Oh, God, I thought I burned all these pictures,” El groans. Max laughs gleefully, then dumps another handful of similar photos in El’s lap.

“Didn’t that phase last for, like, a month?” El asks, dismayed, as she shuffles through them. Her twelve-year-old self stares back, expression almost comically stony, in dark eye makeup and slicked back hair and—God, it’s so embarrassing. “How are there so many photos?”

“Those are from eighth grade, when Will first started getting into photography,” Max muses. “Don’t you remember how crazy he went for it the first few months? Taking pictures of every damn thing that would stay still for longer than a second.”

“Yeah,” El laughs. She still can’t get over how different she looked four years ago. The dark eye makeup; the short, gel-slicked hair; the copious amounts of leather and the color black she’d incorporate into her outfits… It’s a far cry from how she dresses and looks now—she’s grown out her hair to below her shoulders since then, and gravitates toward softer, pastel clothes when choosing what to wear. 

And she’s happy about that. Grunge never suited El, and she still doesn’t know why she ever thought it might. She pushes the photos away, and reaches for another shoebox, but Max grabs her arm to stop her.

“Look at this,” she says, handing over a polaroid picture. El takes it and feels a smile overtake her face.

“How’d you get this?”

It’s from Halloween in sixth grade, back before Max moved to Hawkins. The boys had all dressed up as Ghostbusters, El remembers. They hadn’t told El, and when they had found out, right as they were all about to go trick-or-treating, El remembers how dejected she had felt.

El had always been good at hiding her emotions, but Mike had more often than not been able to see right through her. So when her face fell slightly after Will arrived to Mike’s basement in his Ghostbuster costume, Mike had taken her aside and asked her what was wrong.

One glance at Will’s costume had been enough for him to realize. He had apologized profusely, told her that they never meant to hurt her, that it wasn’t that big of a deal. She didn’t tell him what she was thinking, what was _really_ bothering her—that since they had started middle school, and Mike had met Dustin and Lucas and Will, she had been feeling more and more sidelined. Like she wasn’t still his best friend.

But Mike knew her well enough to know the truth. So he found her a white sheet, cut two holes in it for eyes, and announced proudly that she was the ghost they were busting.

Even now when she’s looking back, the memory fills her with warmth. There’s a reason why he’s her best friend, after all. Why he has been her whole life. No one’s understood her like he has. She doesn’t think anyone else ever will.

“Will dumped a bunch of his photos on me,” El realizes Max is saying. She looks up and blinks. 

“What?”

Max gives her a weird look. “You asked how I got the picture,” she says.

“Oh,” El replies, blushing. “Right. Why’d Will do that?”

“I don’t know,” Max shrugs. “He’s such a hoarder, and his mom was forcing him to get rid of stuff, so he gave me a bunch of his pictures. With the agreement that he’d take them back whenever he could, of course,” she adds.

“You’re not giving anything back to him, are you?” El asks amusedly.

“Hell no,” Max scoffs.

“Can I keep this photo?” El asks. When Max looks up at her, she instantly regrets it. “You know what, never mind—” she tries to say, but the look on Max’s face is akin to that of a predator once it’s caught its prey.

“Yeah, for sure,” Max smirks. “I have a few others of you and Mike, too, if you want them—”

“—I don’t want it just because Mike’s in it; everyone else is in it too,” El protests. 

Max rolls her eyes. “Why lie?” She opens up a new shoebox and shuffles through it before handing three of them over to El. Despite herself, El takes them willingly.

They’re pictures of her and Mike from different years, so she can see how much they’ve grown over time. 

There’s one from elementary school, back when El had lighter, nearly blonde hair and Mike was still the shortest kid in their grade. It’s of the two of them at the park, arms around one another in a side hug. El can’t help but laugh at how wide their smiles are—eager in the special way all little kids tend to smile—and how she was a head taller than him at the time. _Wow, have things changed since then._

The next one El recognizes to be from eighth grade graduation, and it’s a candid of them talking. Mike’s wearing a dorky suit that’s just a tad too short on him—it was around then that he started getting his growth spurts, she remembers. He’s nearly doubled over in laughter, probably at something she said. She’s always taken pride in her ability to make him laugh so hard. It’s a good picture. A really good picture.

The last one, though, she’s never seen before. It’s the most recent, probably taken about a year or so ago, and it’s of her and Mike in the snow. They’re almost unrecognizable, clothed in puffy winter coats with hats pulled low on their foreheads. It’s similar to the first photo in that they’re both standing with their arms around each other and smiling goofily like a pair of little kids, with a few major differences. Mike’s the one who towers a head over El in this one, and the snowy background is a stark contrast to the summery setting of the older picture. This one’s got to be her favorite.

Max suddenly lets out a snort, jolting El out of her own thoughts.

“What?” she snaps before she can stop herself. 

“You are so whipped for that boy,” Max comments, unfazed by El’s testy tone. “Like. I swear if I looked close enough I could find hearts in your eyes.”

"Max," El starts to say.

“—and it’s the same for him, too. I don’t get it,” Max speaks over her. “You’re both so obviously in love. You have been since… forever. What are you waiting for?”

“Max,” El tries again, but there’s really no stopping Max once she gets started.

“I mean. It’s already senior year. Who knows if you’ll ever get another opportunity to tell him?” Max points out. “Are you really just gonna accept that it’s unrequited without _knowing_ it is?”

“Max, stop,” El says. She’s starting to get irritated now. “This has nothing to do with you.”

But Max isn’t listening. “Everyone can see it _except_ you two. When are you two gonna get over yourselves and—”

“Max!” El interrupts loudly. This time, she seems to have finally gotten through to her, because Max actually stops talking. In a quieter voice, El continues, “Like I said. It’s none of your business. And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop telling me what to do with _my_ life.”

Max looks a little shocked at El’s sudden outburst, but she recovers quickly. “I’m sorry,” she says seriously. “It’s just… you’re both my best friends. I want you two to be happy. And I don’t understand why you don’t want that for yourselves.”

El’s speechless. Max soldiers on. “And I’m worried that this might be the last chance you’ll have. It’s already senior year. You might not have the opportunity to—”

El’s neck prickles a little—with anxiety, or annoyance, or both, she doesn’t know. Either way, she doesn’t like where Max is going with that. “You make it sound like we’re constantly depressed or something,” she says, deciding to ignore the second part of what her friend says. “And we’re not. We’re best friends before anything else. And I’m okay with that.”

“But wouldn’t you be happier if you were more? What are you so afraid of? What do you have to lose?” Max presses.

El wants to reply with a hard _no;_ say that she’s perfectly content just being his best friend. But that would be a lie. And as for what she has to lose if she were to tell him how she feels?

“For one, it would be _embarrassing as hell,_ ” El fires back.”For another, it’d probably end our friendship, because how do you come back from telling your best friend that you like him? And if _that_ happened, then it would also ruin the whole Party, because it would be too awkward to hang around each other anymore—”

“El, stop,” Max interrupts. “You’re saying all of that assuming he doesn’t like you back.”

“And he doesn’t,” El replies icily. 

“You don’t know that,” Max argues.

“Uh, yeah, I think I would,” El says before she can stop herself. “ _I’m_ his best friend, after all.”

Max blinks, and El’s immediately flooded with shame. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “That was rude.”

But her friend just laughs and shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. You’re right. It’s not my place. I’ll back off.”

For some reason, that only makes El feel worse. She knows Max doesn’t mean any harm. She isn’t doing any of this for no reason. “I appreciate it, Max, really. It’s just. I don’t want to lose him, you know?” she says. Her friend’s eyes soften a little.

“I know,” she replies, and puts her hand over El’s. “And I really, really don’t think that would happen.” El opens her mouth to reply, but Max puts a hand up. “Listen, I don’t want to argue about this. I don’t think you do either. So I’ll stop ‘meddling,’ or whatever,” she says, making air quotes with her fingers. “But you know what I think.”

“Yeah, I do,” El says drily. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d shut up about it already.”

“I am!” Max promises, and makes an exaggerated motion of zipping her lips. “Consider me well and truly shut up about the whole thing.”

“Thank you,” El says. They both go back to shuffling through the photos.

After a few beats of silence, Max says, “Okay, I promise this is the last thing I’ll say about the whole thing—” El groans, “—but I wasn’t lying when I said you two make us all sick with how obviously in love you are. If you don’t tell him at some point, I sure as hell will.”

El looks over at her in horror, and Max quickly widens her eyes in an expression of overstated innocence. “Joking! Joking. I was joking.”

“Good,” El responds, relieved.

_(She won’t know until much, much later that Max was never joking.)_

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

El sits up with a loud gasp.

Her heart is racing, chest heaving with deep breaths, back slick with a cold sweat. Her eyes adjust to the dark and for a few horrible seconds, she’s frozen in fear at her unfamiliar surroundings. But then she remembers—she’s at Max’s place. She knows this room like the back of her hand.

Yet that knowledge doesn’t do anything to assuage the anxiety buzzing through her like an electric current. She can’t remember what she dreamed that’s causing her so much unease right now; only that the sick feeling won’t go away. _I need some air,_ she thinks, and stumbles out of Max’s bed.

 _Shit. Max,_ she realizes, and turns to cast a glance at her friend on the other side of the bed. Luckily, Max doesn’t seem to have been affected by El’s movement. She’s still fast asleep, hands folded neatly under her cheek. El breathes a small sigh of relief, then stands there for a moment, wondering what she should do. She doesn’t want to wake Max up, because if she’s a bitch regularly, she reaches a whole new level when she doesn’t get enough sleep. Either way, El’s just really not in the mood to talk to Max right now. She still hasn’t quite forgotten what happened with the photos earlier today.

And _that_ thought reminds her of another person. She’s stupid for not thinking of him sooner.

She grabs her phone from the bedside table, then quietly leaves the room. The house is pin-drop silent, so El takes extra care not to make any noise when she trods down the stairs. She heads over to the back patio door. Max always makes sure to keep it lubricated so that it never makes any noise when opened; it’s what she uses when she sneaks out to see Lucas. El slides it open and steps outside, gently shutting it closed behind her.

With the heat wave they’re in the middle of, the air is warm and just slightly humid despite the late hour. In her old shirt and pajama pants, El is completely comfortable. The fresh air is already making her feel better. She plops down on a lawn chair and opens up her messages to send Mike a text. 

Right after hitting “send,” her brain seems to catch up to her. It’s so late, _and_ a school night—why would Mike respond? And even if he does, he shouldn’t. He needs his sleep. He’s just as bad as Max when he doesn’t get enough of it.

But within seconds, her phone screen lights up with a notification from him.

_**why are you awake?** _

_**i could ask you the same thing??**_ she types back.

The texting bubble appears for a few seconds then vanishes again. This happens once more before he sends a simple _**couldn’t sleep.**_

 _ **why not?**_ she replies, a slight frown on her face.

 _ **idk**_ is all he says. She sits there for a moment, debating whether she should press him for details, because something’s clearly wrong. Mike is such a grandma most of the time; he never even stays up past ten on school nights if he can help it. But before she can make a decision, her phone buzzes with an incoming call from him. She accepts on instinct.

“Hey,” comes Mike’s voice from the other end. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” El says. 

“Then why are you up so late? We have school tomorrow. You need to sleep.”

El rolls her eyes. This is _so_ Mike, honestly—worrying about everyone else before even sparing a single thought to himself. “I’m not the one who turns into a bear when I get fewer than eight hours. Pretty sure that’s _you,_ actually.”

She can almost sense him rolling _his_ eyes this time. “We’re talking about you right now. You’re the one who texted me.”

“Yeah, but—”

“—you can tell me if something’s wrong,” he cuts her off exasperatedly. “Don’t worry about me. Just tell me what’s on your mind. Why are you awake?”

El sighs. Sometimes she wishes he wasn’t such a good friend. It only makes her like him more. “I don’t know. I had a nightmare, but I don’t remember it. It must’ve been really bad, though, because I woke up and I was all panicked and now I can’t go back to sleep because I’m too on edge.”

Mike makes a commiserating sort of hum on his end. “Oh. That sucks, dude. Are you feeling better now?”

“A little,” El admits. “Fresh air helped.”

“Fresh air? Are you outside?” 

“Yeah,” she chuckles. “I snuck out into Max’s backyard. You know how she keeps the patio door greased all the time.”

Mike laughs. “Oh, you’re having a sleepover, aren’t you? I forgot you guys did those.”

“Yeah,” El says. “It was sad, though. Because this’ll probably be the last one we’ll ever have.”

“Well, last _back-to-school_ sleepover. It’s not like you’re never having sleepovers together ever again.”

“Still,” El replies. “It feels like the end of an era.”

“You’re so dramatic,” he says. “This is the _beginning_ of an era, if anything. We’re gonna become adults this year, El. And apply to college. And graduate.”

“You sound excited,” El says quietly.

“Well, I am,” Mike replies. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just. I don’t want to grow up and have those kind of responsibilities. And this might be the last year we’re all together in one place. It just feels like… like everything’s ending so soon, and I haven’t done all the things I wanted to do.”

“Well, what do you have left to do?” he asks.

Max’s words from earlier lodge in El’s mind like thorns. _Tell you how I feel,_ she thinks. _Before I lose the chance._

“El?” Mike says. “Are you still with me? I swear to God, if you fell asleep—”

“—no, no, I’m still here,” El says quickly. “I think the Wi-Fi’s just bad outside. I couldn’t hear you properly.”

“Oh. Well, I was asking what you have left to do,” Mike says.

“I don’t know,” she responds vaguely. “Things. Why are _you_ so excited to get out of here?”

Mike is silent for a few seconds before he responds. “I want to move out,” he says plainly. There’s an edge to his voice that she’s not so sure she likes.

“Mike,” El says. It suddenly makes sense to her why he’s awake right now. “Are they fighting again?”

He’s silent for a bit too long and it tells her all she needs to know. “I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“It’s fine,” he says. “You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I wish I could do something,” she says. 

“You are. By talking to me. Keep talking to me,” he says. 

“I’ll stay on the phone with you all night if you want,” she promises.

“Thanks, El,” he says. “You’re a good friend.”

“You are too,” she tells him. “The best best friend.”

He lets out a happy hum and it makes her heart lift a little. She’s glad he’s able to manage something like that right now. “Tell me what else I’m best at,” he says.

She laughs fondly. “If I do that, I’m afraid your head will get bigger than it already is.”

“Shut up,” he says, but she can hear the smile in his voice. “Are you feeling better?”

Is she? El is quiet for a moment as she thinks. She still feels a little anxious, sure. But it’s definitely less now, replaced mostly by a feeling of lightness and giddiness and warmth that always seems to fill her when Mike is around. “Yeah,” she replies. “I am.”

“I guess that’s one thing I’m best at, then,” Mike says smugly. “Making you feel better.”

“Yeah,” she says, smiling fondly. “I guess it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk why but i am feeling very insecure about this chapter so i'm sorry if it sucks :( let me know what you thought!!


	4. it's nice to have a friend

Mike wakes up to the uncomfortable glare of sunlight, intense even through his closed eyelids.

This isn’t right. His bed faces _away_ from the window, and besides, it’s never this bright at six in the morning.

He slowly opens his eyes, then promptly lets out an annoyed groan.

He and El didn’t actually stay on the phone the whole night—sometime around two-thirty, his eyelids started getting heavy with sleepiness, and El must have heard that in his voice. She hung up on him after whispering a quick _Good night._ He was out like a light after that.

But that also meant Mike fell asleep last night at his _desk,_ of all places. Suddenly he’s hyper aware of the sharp pain in his neck from the uncomfortable position. His phone lies facing up next to him, and with dread, he taps the screen. _7:12 AM,_ it reads.

“Fuck,” he mutters, getting up quickly. He can’t remember the last time he slept in so late. If his alarm fails to wake him up (which it hasn’t in years), his mom will; she’s always awake at six. So why didn’t she do that today?

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ ” Lucas will be around in half an hour—no, wait, it’s the first day of school, so they have to get their schedules, so he’ll probably be here even _sooner._ Mike frantically goes to his messages and shoots Lucas a quick text: _**hey dude i’m really sorry but i slept in super late can you wait until like 7:30 to come get me???**_

Lucas’s reply is prompt and Mike can almost feel his friend’s annoyance through his phone. _**are you fr?**_

 _ **please??**_ Mike types back.

Lucas types for a few nerve-wracking moments before replying with _**fine i’ll pick dustin up first. but if your ass isn’t outside at 7:30 we’re leaving without you.**_

Relieved, Mike races out of his room and down the stairs, still not sure why his mom hasn’t woken him up yet. But when he reaches the kitchen, his eyes land on the shards of a broken plate and some food from last night. It all suddenly hits him like a ton of bricks.

Over the last few months, Mike has observed that his parents’ fights always start over one of three things: his dad never being home, something his mom did that his dad doesn’t like, or nothing at all. Last night was special, because it was a combination of the first two.

Mike escaped upstairs right as it began, but they were loud enough for him to put together what happened. His dad had come home late from work (per usual). His mom had been drinking all evening (also per usual). So when she had been serving him dinner, her tipsiness had resulted in her dropping his plate. From there, it spiraled into a huge fight. Thank goodness Holly had been at a sleepover. Mike doesn’t think he would’ve been able to keep it together enough to console her as well.

He hears footsteps behind him and turns around. It’s his mom coming down the stairs, and she doesn’t look good. She’s in a bathrobe, hair disheveled and face bare of makeup. Mike can’t remember the last time he saw her like this.

“Mom?” he asks. He hates how his voice sounds—small and soft, like he’s some little kid.

She shifts bleary eyes onto him. “Mike?” she croaks. Her voice is hoarse from all the yelling last night. “What are you doing up?”

She’s worse off than he thought. “It’s the first day of school,” he says slowly. “Don’t you remember?”

His mom just stares at him blankly. “It is?”

“Yeah, Mom,” he says, fully aware of how whiny his voice sounds. He can’t help it. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. And Mike _hates_ it when things don’t go the way they’re expected.

“Oh. I’m sorry. It must have slipped my mind,” his mom says tiredly, running a hand over her face. Mike just looks at her in disbelief, and she seems to finally realize that he’s upset.

“I’m really sorry, sweetie,” she says again, and walks down so she can look at him face-to-face. She grabs his arm. Her hand is cold around his wrist. “Please don’t be too upset with me. It won’t happen again.”

“Whatever,” Mike mutters, and wrenches his arm out of her grip. Without sparing his mom another glance, he walks past her back up the stairs. He’s just so _fed up_ with everything right now; his parents fighting, his dad’s absence, his mom’s instability, the fact that holding the shreds of his family together has fallen on him now.

She’s calling after him, now, and it sparks a flare of anger inside him. “Fuck you,” he mutters angrily under his breath, and continues up the stairs.

Perhaps it’s that anger, burning low in the pit of his stomach like a flame, that makes him forget about how tired he is from getting so little sleep, and that propels him through the mad dash that is his morning routine. He throws on a shirt and some jeans, decides to just let his hair be the mess that it is for today, and brushes his teeth. All that’s left is to eat breakfast, which he’s dreading. The last thing he wants is to have to see his mom again, but he can’t skip breakfast, too, not when he already feels so tired.

So, sullenly, he trods down the stairs again. His mom must have cleaned up the broken plate and old food, because the place she dropped them last night is spotless now. With her back to him, she sits at the breakfast table, her hands around a mug in a white-knuckled grip. She turns when he walks into the kitchen. “Mike,” she says softly, eyes pleading. “Will you come sit?”

He almost says no, but her eyes look shiny, and there’s nothing in the world that hurts worse than making your mom cry. At the same time, Mike isn’t entirely ready to put aside his anger. “I’m gonna be late for school if I don’t make myself breakfast now,” he mutters.

“I already made you some toast,” she says, pushing a plate of it down the table so he can see it. “And there’s coffee.”

“Oh,” Mike says. His mom’s face falls a little at his obvious surprise, and he immediately feels guilty. Quickly, he sits down in the chair next to hers, and grabs a slice of toast.

She clears her throat. “I’m really sorry, Mike,” she says. “I should’ve been there for you today.”

“It’s fine,” he lies around a mouthful of toast, carefully avoiding eye contact. “I don’t care. I’m not a little kid.”

“You’ll always be a little kid to me,” she says calmly. “But that’s not the point. I shouldn't have forgotten. I’m sorry.”

Mike just shrugs in response. He _knows_ how petty he’s being, but he can’t help himself. The resentment he’s been carrying inside for so long isn’t going to go away with a simple apology.

His mom hesitates for a moment before speaking, like she doesn’t know whether she should say what she’s about to say or not. “I know that it’s been… hard, recently,” she says carefully. This makes him look up at her incredulously. None of them ever talk about the fights. They don’t even so much as _refer_ to them.

“But I hope you know your father and I both love you, and each other, very much. We’re just… going through a bit of a rough patch,” she continues.

Mike resists the urge to roll his eyes. In all his seventeen years, he doesn’t think he’s ever once looked at his parents and seen them as a couple that was in love. It’s not much of a secret that their marriage was one out of convenience. He doesn’t understand why his mother feels the need to lie.

“We’re sorry that you and Holly have to be around to see it,” she says. “We wish it were different. But all couples have low points. We’ll get through it as a family.”

It’s those words that do it. Maybe if she had phrased herself differently—if she had taken the opportunity to be honest with him instead of sugarcoating it like he’s a kid that can’t take the truth—he might have found it in himself to forgive her.

But she didn’t take that opportunity, so Mike just stares back at her stonily.

You see, he can believe that she’s genuinely sorry, and that she loves him. He can almost even believe she and his father regret how much they fight. But “getting through it as a family?” And “every couple having low points?” For one thing, he doesn’t even think his dad is _home_ right now; he always leaves right after they fight—so much for “getting through it as a family.” And for another, he doubts that you can call nearly an entire year of constant arguments a “low point.”

But he doesn’t say any of that. Just holds her gaze with the same closed expression as before. Something in her eyes dims, and she looks away.

Mike silently finishes his toast and moves on to his coffee. It’s not hot the way he likes it, but that means he can gulp it down quicker. When he’s finished, he pushes his chair back and stands up. His mom looks at him, eyes unbearably sad.

“Do you want me to drive you?” she tries, and he almost feels bad.

“No, I’m okay,” he replies, walking out of the kitchen. “I always go with Lucas and Dustin.”

“Oh. Well, I hope—”

Mike grabs his backpack by the door and slams it harder than necessary on his way out, cutting his mom off. He doesn’t look back as he walks over to Lucas’s car.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

_  
**heyyyy good morning :D**   
_

_**hellooooo?  
where are you?** _

_**mike??** _

_**michael** _

_**MIKE** _

“Will you get off your phone?”

El looks up, startled. Max and Will are glaring at her. She blushes and pockets her phone.

“Sorry,” she says. “I was just—”

“—texting Mike, we know,” Will says.

“I’m worried,” El hurries to explain before either of them can say anything. The Party usually meets up in the parking lot every morning before school, but it’s just El, Max, and Will today. The bell for first period is supposed to ring in less than five minutes. “Not just about Mike. Lucas and Dustin too. It’s almost time for first period. They’re never this late.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, El,” Max says. “They still have time. Spamming Mike won’t make them arrive any faster.”

Just as she finishes talking, the bell rings. El turns to her, eyebrows raised, but Max only looks amused.

“Huh,” she says. “Oh, well. Sucks for the three of them, I guess.”

Will laughs and pulls on his backpack. “I’ve got to get to class. See you guys at lunch.”

“Yup,” Max says, shouldering her own backpack. “Save the rest of us seats if you get there early.”

Will nods before he walks off toward the school. Max turns back to El, and lets out a huff when she sees her on her phone again.

“God, El,” she says, snatching it away. El makes a grab for it, but Max pulls it out of reach. “Go to class. They’re not gonna die just because they’re running a little late. Stop worrying so much.”

El takes her phone back. “Keep your hands off my stuff, Max,” she gripes, walking past her toward her class.

“Love you too,” Max calls. “See you at lunch.” El flips her off without turning around.

Homeroom classes at Hawkins High are organized alphabetically, so El’s class is full of other kids with last names that start with the letter _H._ Which means Dustin should be in this class, too.

But he’s a no-show until the very second the bell rings, when he bursts inside looking as if he sprinted the entire way there. He scans the room before his eyes settle on El. A relieved smile takes over his face, and he makes his way over to the empty seat next to her.

“Hey,” he says, voice still a little breathless. El gives him a look.

“Why are you so late? And where were you three this morning?” she hisses. Dustin widens his eyes and shakes his head at her.

“Don’t blame _me,_ ” he hisses back. “We would’ve been on time, but your boyfriend overslept.”

El winces. She feels partly to blame for him oversleeping, and she’s so preoccupied with guilt that she doesn’t say anything about the “boyfriend” part. “Shit, really?” she says, averting her eyes. “Do you know why?”

“No idea,” Dustin says. “Believe me, we tried asking, but he was in the worst mood this morning. Kept snapping at us for no reason.”

El winces again. With his lack of sleep _plus_ his parents arguing again, she figures there was really no avoiding him being snappy today. “Oh,” she says lamely. “Well… he gets like that sometimes. I think he’ll be better later.”

“I hope so,” Dustin says, rolling his eyes. “You have no idea how much willpower it took for me and Lucas not to give him a piece of our minds.”

El is saved from having to reply by their teacher, Mr. Wilson, walking in. The class silences, and he begins the regular first-day-of-school homeroom spiel; drones on and on about school rules and procedures for the year. It’s easy for El to zone out. She very nearly falls asleep before he starts talking about something that piques her interest.

“Moving on to senior activities,” he says. The whole class seems to wake up a bit as friends exchange excited looks and a hum of chatter breaks the silence. Their teacher doesn’t seem to notice. “This semester, Hawkins High will be holding the Homecoming dance, where two seniors will be elected as Homecoming Royalty; and the annual Senior Ski Trip to Mount Holiday in Michigan. As always, to be eligible for participation in these events, you will need to maintain a GPA of…”

Mr. Wilson continues to speak, but El’s stopped paying attention. She turns to grin at Dustin. “I completely forgot we get to go on the ski trip this year,” she whispers.

“I didn’t,” Dustin whispers back, a mischievous grin on his face. “I’m excited.”

El regards him suspiciously. “What are you so smug about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“Oh, I’m worrying,” she replies. Dustin has a history of being a schemer. More often than not, his ideas end badly. She knows this from experience. “Seriously. Are you… planning something? For the ski trip?”

Dustin raises his eyebrows innocently. “Why would you think that? What do you take me for, some kind of conspirator?”

“Well… yeah,” El says like it’s obvious. Dustin laughs.

“You’ll see,” he says simply, turning away from her to look at the teacher again. “You’ll definitely see.”

El turns, too, her mind now preoccupied with trying to make sense of their conversation. What is Dustin planning? And why does she have such a weird feeling about it?

 _You’re just being paranoid,_ the logical part of her brain pipes up. _You don’t know what he’s thinking. It’s nothing to get worked up over._

(Later, as the Party will realize, Dustin’s plan will very much indeed be something to get worked up over. But none of them, Dustin included, know that yet.)

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike’s day has only gotten worse since morning.

First, he received the worst schedule _ever_ —all the hardest teachers and absolutely zero classes with his friends. Well, he’s only had four of them so far, but his last two periods are Creative Writing and TA’ing in the library, which he doubts any of the Party will be doing too.

Second, he forgot to pack a lunch, which means he’ll have to starve for the next three hours until he gets home. He’d consider bumming some money from one of his friends, but he’s not nearly hungry enough for what their school calls food.

So Mike makes his way from fourth period Calculus to the cafeteria in a sour mood. When he plops down at the table Lucas saved, he doesn’t offer any greeting. Lucas regards him cautiously, like he’s a bomb that’ll go off at any moment. The more logical part of Mike’s brain acknowledges that Lucas has good reason for thinking that—it’s not like Mike wasn’t an asshole this morning—but he’s not really thinking with that part of his brain right now. Rather, he only feels a little more irritated.

“Hey,” Lucas says conversationally.

“Hey,” Mike says back in as pleasant of a tone as he can muster. It must not have worked very well, though, because Lucas gives up all pretense and fixes Mike with a look.

“What’s going on with you? Why’ve you been in such a bad mood today?” he asks bluntly. Mike frowns, annoyed.

“Nothing’s going on with me,” he snaps. Lucas raises his eyebrows.

“Really? Then why are you acting like such a child?” he fires back. “First you got mad at me and Dustin for asking you a _question_ this morning. Now you’re yelling at me for trying to help you when it’s clear something’s going on. What the hell, man?”

Mike finds himself taken aback a little. When Lucas comes after someone, he _really_ doesn’t pull any punches. He feels a violent blush overtake his cheeks.

“Shut up, Lucas,” he blusters. Lucas opens his mouth, but before he can say anything more, Max appears at the table and slides into the seat on his other side. Thank God for that; Mike doesn’t think he could’ve come up with anything more intelligent than “shut up” for a response to whatever Lucas would’ve said next.

“Hi,” Max says, and leans in to kiss Lucas on his cheek. Mike watches as his friend’s entire demeanor changes just from that chaste little show of affection—his posture relaxes; his lips turn up into a soft smile as he turns to look at her; his voice loses all the hardness that it had earlier.

“Hey,” he says softly, slipping his arm around Max’s shoulders easily. “How was your day?”

Mike can’t help but stare a little at them. Max and Lucas make such a great couple that sometimes even he wishes he had something similar. _Mike,_ who doesn’t know if he’ll ever date anyone after bearing witness to the mess that his parents’ relationship is. It’s something about the way that Max helps Lucas loosen up and slow down; the way that Lucas softens Max’s rougher edges, showing her it’s okay to open up—the way that the mere presence of one seems to be all it takes to lift the other’s mood, change it for the better. Mike has never been a romantic, but watching his best friends be so in love with each other sometimes makes him wonder whether it would be so bad to open his heart to someone like that.

The screech of chair legs dragging against the floor brings him back to reality. He turns, and it’s only El. She looks down. “Hi.”

“Hey,” Mike says.

“What’s going on in there?” she asks, tapping his forehead. “You looked so focused. Thought you were casting a hex on Lucas and Max or something.”

Mike rolls his eyes, but can’t help his smile. “It was nothing. Just brooding, you know.”

El scoffs. “Isn’t brooding supposed to be attractive?”

“Was it not?” he says, pulling a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me, El.”

“Shut up,” she tells him, unwrapping her sandwich. Is he just imagining it, or does it look as if she’s blushing a little?

“Where’s your lunch?” she asks, turning to look at him. He quickly looks away before she can notice he was staring.

“Forgot to pack any,” Mike says, letting out an overdramatic sigh. “Guess I’m just starving today.”

“Oh,” El says. “That sucks.”

“You can’t have any of mine, by the way,” Dustin snarks. “I don’t care how miserable you look.” Mike looks past El and notices for the first time that he and Will joined their table. When did _they_ get here?

“Fuck you, too,” Mike scowls. He feels a hand on his arm, and turns to look at El. She raises her eyebrows a little, like she’s trying to tell him something. “What?” he asks in a quieter voice. She leans in, and for a confusing split second he thinks she’s going to kiss him on the cheek. Instead, she goes for his ear.

“Dustin said you were kind of… rude to him and Lucas this morning. You know they didn’t deserve that. Maybe you should apologize? ” she suggests gently before pulling back. Her eyes are expectant and a little bit pleading. It makes him feel guilty.

“Yeah, okay,” he mumbles. “Lucas? Dustin?” he says, loud enough that they can hear him. They both turn to look, wearing similar expressions of wariness. “Sorry for being a dick this morning. I didn’t sleep well and…” he catches El shaking her head almost imperceptibly. “...I’m not going to make excuses. Just. I’m sorry,” he finishes awkwardly.

Dustin and Lucas are silent for a moment as they exchange a look before they both turn back to him. “It’s cool,” Lucas shrugs. Dustin makes a noise of affirmation, and that’s that. Mike turns back to El. _Happy?_ he mouths. She smiles at him and nods. It makes the awkwardness of apologizing worth it.

“Here,” she says, nudging his arm as she hands him one slice of her sandwich. He looks down at her, surprised. Her expression is earnest. “Take it.”

“Won’t you be hungry?” he says, ignoring the quiet growl of protest that comes from his stomach.

El rolls her eyes. “Just take it, Mike. I’ll live.”

“El, I can’t,” he objects. She stuffs it in his open hand.

“Yes, you can. If you really think I’d let my best friend starve, you’re wrong,” she says firmly.

“Thanks, El,” he says softly. “I owe you.”

“Don’t be silly. What are friends for?” she says around a mouthful of sandwich. The sight should be gross, but it’s endearing instead. Fills him with warmth. Watching her doing something as dull as eating lunch is enough for him to have a moment of clarity: he doesn’t need a significant other to make him feel happy. El, his best friend since forever, does that already. She’s all he needs. The best best friend.

He smiles back at her before biting into his sandwich.


	5. no more secrets

Senior year barely holds off for a day before bombarding the Party with work. There are assignments to complete, tests to start studying for, club meetings to worry about… El never, _ever_ thought she’d be saying this, but it might actually be worse than junior year. So she’s more than glad when the week finally comes to a close. It’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders as she walks out the doors of the school and into the parking lot. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and Mike is at her car.

Wait. Why is Mike at her car?

“Mike?” she calls, squinting from about ten feet away. He’s leaning against the passenger door, eyes glued to his phone, but he looks up when he hears his name.

“Hey,” he says, putting his phone in his pocket and straightening up. He walks forward at the same time as her, but the length of his stride is longer than he must realize, because she crashes right into him, her face to his chest. 

“Shoot,” he says sheepishly. Grabs her elbows to keep her from tripping and falling. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she says, blushing hard and pulling away. She casts her eyes downward, then to her car behind him—looks for anywhere to train her gaze, really, except at him. “Um… why are you here?”

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to go to Benny’s?” Mike says uncertainly. He leans sideways a little so he can meet her line of sight. “Hey, is something wrong?”

 _Yes,_ El thinks. _I shouldn’t be this flustered over being this close to you, but here we are._

“No,” is all she says, though. She finally brings herself to look at him, and tries not to sigh. The sun at this angle does wonders for him; turns his skin a shade of pale gold, makes his dark eyes glitter, illuminates the spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks. It’s criminal how good-looking he is without realizing. It shouldn’t have this much of an effect on her.

Mike furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head to the side like a confused puppy. “Are you sure? You look a little out of it.”

El shakes her head as if that’ll knock some sense back into her head. “Yeah, I’m sure. So, uh, you were saying about Benny’s?” she asks in as even of a tone as she can manage. 

Mike nods and brings a hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “Yeah. I know you might have homework, or whatever, so I was thinking we could hang out there for an hour or so?”

“I’d love that,” El says sincerely. “And I’m assuming I’m driving?”

Mike smiles. “I’ll pay?”

So that’s how they end up at Benny’s diner half an hour later. They’ve been going there together since they rediscovered it freshman year. What’s always drawn them to Benny’s is how pleasantly vacant it tends to be—there are never more than a few patrons at a time, probably because of its location at the very outskirts of Hawkins. It’s sort of become Mike’s and El’s _place_ —Mike’s basement might belong to the Party, but Benny’s has always felt like his and El’s alone. 

Benny looks up from behind the counter as they walk inside. 

“Hey, you two,” he says in that booming voice of his. “Been a while since I’ve seen ya.”

El smiles apologetically. “Sorry, Benny. It’s been a hectic first week back at school. Summer was, too.”

“Eh, it’s all right,” he says. “I’m gonna have to say goodbye to you two eventually. You’ll be away next fall, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Mike says. El elbows him, and he looks down at her, confused. _What?_ he mouths. El just rolls her eyes and looks back at Benny, who, luckily, doesn’t seem to have noticed that exchange. She feels an almost protective sort of love for the man. He’s always been so kind to them—he makes sure to give them free milkshakes after finals week and listens to them rant about teachers they don’t like. She doesn’t want him to feel bad at Mike’s unapologetic sureness that they’ll be gone next year. Honestly, she doesn’t even want to _think_ about the fact that they’ll be gone next year.

“We’ll have the usual, please,” she says quickly, before Benny can say anything. He nods and rings them up. 

“That’ll be ready in about ten minutes,” Benny says, accepting Mike’s credit card. The two of them chirp a quick _Thanks_ after he returns it, then head over to their usual booth at the corner of the diner.

“So,” she says once they’ve both sat down. “How was your week?”

“It was all right,” Mike says with a shrug. “Just busy.”

“How about swim? Has that started yet?”

“Not yet. Conditioning doesn’t start until next week,” Mike replies. He’s been on the swim team since his mom forced him into it freshman year, and while at first he absolutely hated it, he’s grown to become one of the best swimmers at their school. The jury’s still out on whether he actually _enjoys_ it, though—no one can tell whether Mike swims because he likes the sport itself or just because he likes winning.

“How about you? How was your week?” Mike asks. 

“The same as yours,” El replies. “Busy. Boring.”

But then she suddenly remembers something.

“Well, there was something cool that happened on Monday,” she says. “Did your homeroom teacher talk about the ski trip too?”

Mike perks up. “Yeah, I remember that,” he says. “It sounds cool. You’re going, right?”

“Duh,” El says. “As if I’d let you all go without me. Imagine the kind of trouble you’d get into.”

Mike grins at that and shrugs in acceptance. “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” El says triumphantly. “That’s why you’ll all need me around.”

Benny arrives with their food then, and sets two plates down on their table. El eagerly pulls the one with the waffles to her and barely remembers to thank Benny before digging in. A wave of clarity seems to crash over her as she bites into it. She hadn’t realized how much she’s missed this—not just the waffles, which are delicious, of course, but the simple peace of being able to do things like this with Mike. Normal _best friend_ things. Back when she didn’t know she liked him. Back when their friends didn’t gawk over their every interaction. _Life was so much easier then,_ she thinks with a pang in her heart.

“I missed this,” she blurts out. Mike looks up from his plate of fries.

“What?” he asks.

“You know,” El says, gesturing vaguely at the table. “Us. Hanging out like this.”

Mike considers El’s words for a moment before nodding in agreement. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too. I didn’t realize how long it’s been since we hung out alone for no reason.” He looks away for a moment, as if he’s getting himself ready to do something, before resuming eye contact. His voice drops to a hushed tone as he confides, “If I’m being honest… you’re the only person I want to talk to these days.”

Mike has a talent for making her feel happy and sad in equal measure all at the same time with the things he says. She tilts her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says, playing with his food. “It’s just… sometimes, it feels like you’re the only person that gets me. Like,” he pauses, searching for the right words. “The rest of the Party. They’re my closest friends, _of course._ But they don’t _get_ me the way you do.”

“That’s not true,” El says. Lucas can read Mike like a book— _he does it all the time._ That’s why they argue so much. Dustin’s brashness might suggest otherwise, but he always notices little things that the others don’t—small tells that inform him when someone’s in a bad mood or is hiding something. Will has been friends with Mike forever at this point, so he’s more than accustomed to the wide range of Mike’s moods. And Max, although being the last to join their Party, is smart as a whip. She knows them all better than they sometimes give her credit for. The Party have been friends for so long _because_ of this—because they _know_ each other. Because they _get_ each other. And El would be lying if she said it didn’t hurt a little to know that Mike doesn’t think so.

Mike shrugs, his face deeply contemplative. “It just feels like that sometimes. I don’t think I could tell any of them half the stuff I tell you.”

“You mean about your parents?” El asks, realization beginning to dawn. 

“Well… yeah,” Mike admits. “But other stuff, too. There are just some things you only tell your _best_ friend, you know?”

“I suppose,” El says dismissively. She’s still focused on the other part of it. “But, Mike. You’re not the only one of us with those problems. Max’s parents have been divorced since forever, and Will’s dad _left_ them—”

“I know that,” Mike says flatly. Seemingly from one moment to the next, his expression seems to have shuttered entirely. It makes El falter a little.

“I don’t understand,” she says quietly. “How do you know that none of them would get you?”

Mike doesn’t answer her for a long time, and it suddenly clicks for El. He _doesn’t_ know—and he’s Mike Wheeler, too proud and immature to open himself up and find out for sure. 

She glares at him. “Mike.”

He goes a little pale under her gaze, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips. “El.”

She looks away after a few tense moments, returning to her waffles. _They’ve gone a little cold,_ she thinks, stabbing at them angrily with her fork. She feels him kick her gently under the table, but refuses to look back up.

“El,” Mike says again. “El.”

She sticks to her silence, but it’s hard when he keeps _kicking_ her. Why she chose a seven-year-old as her best friend, God only knows.

“Elllll,” Mike whines. She finally returns his gaze with a sour look.

“What,” she says flatly.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks, propping his chin on his hand and looking at her with a comically sad expression.

“No,” she replies honestly. “You’re just… you’re so _infuriating_ sometimes, Mike.”

“El,” he begins, but she holds up her hand to cut him off.

“I want what’s best for you. And what’s best for you is _trusting your friends,_ ” she says. “Your problems aren’t yours to carry alone. So stop treating them like they are.”

“But I’m _not_ carrying them alone,” he points out indignantly. “I have you. Unless they’re too much for you to handle. Is that what you’re saying?”

“No,” El protests angrily. “That’s not what I was saying at all, and you know it.” 

It takes her a moment to realize he’s laughing. She glares at him again, and he quickly composes himself again.

“I’m sorry, El. Really. But is it so wrong that I don’t want to tell all our friends that my family’s falling apart?” he asks wryly. “I mean, would you?”

“Well, no,” El begins, but he talks over her.

“I guess, in some ways, it just makes it more bearable, knowing that it’s only you who knows. And I know you want what’s best for me, or whatever,” he continues, making loose air quotes at his last few words, “but I’m not a little kid. I know what I’m doing. I know what I want.”

El can only look at him sadly. She can see in the set of his jaw, the determined glint in his eyes, that Mike’s made up his mind. There’s nothing more she can say or do to change it. She can just _feel_ in her bones that this won’t end well, that this decision will catch up with him, but she feels utterly powerless against it. 

“You promise you’ll keep talking to me?” she says. “That you’ll tell me when you need someone?”

Mike just stares at her for a few moments, mouth slightly open and eyebrows raised, before shaking his head slightly. “Yeah,” he says, his voice pitched a little high. He clears his throat and says again, “Of course. I promise.”

He kicks her under the table again, and tries for a smile. “Can we talk about something else now? Please?”

“Yeah,” El sighs. What else can she say? “Sure we can.”

He smiles then, like the sun breaking through clouds, and the brilliance of it manages to chase away some of the lingering tendrils of foreboding that have settled in her chest. And as they start talking about something new, it seems as if for every new smile he gives her, another tendril disappears, until she forgets about her unease entirely.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

A week later is the Labor Day barbecue at the Wheelers’ place. They host it every year, and every year, it seems to grow a little bigger. El remembers her surprise last year at the sight of cars parked all around the cul-de-sac. The Wilson family had showed up late, and with seemingly no other option, decided to park their car on the Wheelers’ _lawn_ of all places. When Karen had found out, it hadn’t been pretty. El hadn’t ever seen her lose her cool before that, and she hasn’t seen it happen again since.

This year, there aren’t any cars on the lawn, but there are plenty parked by the sidewalks of both the Wheelers’ cul-de-sac and the next street over. El and her dad are lucky that the Wheelers always save them a spot on their driveway, because her sandals and his bad knee wouldn’t appreciate much more of a walk. 

They silently make their way up the front walkway, both of them slightly intimidated by the Wheeler residence even after all these years. It’s not as if El and Jim are some kind of uncultured Indiana hillbillies, but they definitely aren’t from the same side of town as the Wheelers—they don’t have a huge house, or connections in higher places, or the money that Ted and Karen do. And even though she’s his best friend, El can never quite feel at ease around Mike’s parents. 

Jim knocks on the door, and it swings open instantly. Karen, in a full face of perfect makeup and a dress that looks like it must have cost at least a few hundred dollars, smiles warmly before ushering them inside. 

“Jim, El,” she gushes. “It’s so nice to see you two.”

“You too, Karen,” Jim says. “Didn’t trouble yourself too much with all the cooking this year, I hope?”

Karen gives a tinkling laugh. “Not at all, Jim. I enjoy it. Gives me something to do while all the kids are off doing whatever they’re doing.”

Jim nods, a slightly robotic smile frozen on his face. El decides to step in before the situation gets too uncomfortable. “It’s great to see you, Mrs. Wheeler,” she says, putting a hand on her dad’s arm. “Is everyone in the backyard?”

“Yes, dear,” Karen says. El smiles politely and turns to lead her dad with her to the backyard but a look crosses over the older woman’s face.

“Actually, El, do you mind staying behind, just a moment? I need a quick word,” she says. She’s still smiling, but her expression seems to have grown a little bit brittle—there’s a definite look of desperation in her eyes that wasn’t there before. It alights a small flame of curiosity in El, strong enough that she decides to stay, if for nothing else but to see what’s bothering Karen so much that it’s visible on her face. She’s never known Mike’s mother to ever be anything less than cool and collected.

“Of course,” El says. Her dad’s eyes are questioning when she meets them, and she gives a small shrug. _I don’t know, either._ He raises his eyebrows and looks between Karen and El before nodding slightly and walking off to the backyard on his own.

Karen smiles at El again. “If you’ll just follow me to the kitchen? It’s much quieter there.”

El obeys and walks after Karen as she leads her through the house into the kitchen. Karen was right, it _is_ quieter in here—El didn’t register the din of the backyard party until she was away from it.

Karen sits down at the kitchen island and gestures for El to join her. She doesn’t even wait for El to actually get seated before talking. It’s obvious this has been weighing on her for a while; she seems just about to burst with words.

“I know that you’re good friends with Mike,” Karen begins, twisting the expensive ring on her finger. “His best friend, right?”

“Well… yeah,” El responds. She has no idea where Karen is going with this. Have the past twelve years not made that clear enough to her?

“I’m sorry,” Karen says, smiling nervously. “I hate to say this, but I really wouldn’t know anymore. A lot of things have changed for Mike recently. I’m always so late finding things out.”

“What?” 

“He’s been going through a lot, lately,” Karen hedges. “And, well, the last person he would want to talk about that with is his _mother._ ”

The way Karen is eyeing her, El can tell that she’s referring to the arguments. That irritates her. There’s something about Karen lamenting that Mike is going through a lot when _she’s_ half of the reason for it that doesn’t sit right with El at all. She stays silent in fear of saying something she’ll regret as a wave of righteous anger on Mike’s behalf crashes over her. 

For a few moments, it’s like they’re having a sort of contest over who will crack first from the tension. El wins after a few moments, when Karen seems to let go of her collected facade entirely.

She looks away from El and sort of deflates, her shoulders slumping as she lets out a deep sigh. She brings a hand up to massage her temple, and when she meets El’s gaze again, her eyes are incredibly sad. It’s as if she aged ten years in a few seconds.

“I feel like a horrible mother,” Karen says, and despite her anger for Mike, El can’t help but pity the woman. She sounds crushed. “I just… I don’t understand him. I can’t. I try, so hard, but I don’t think he wants to let me in. And it worries me.”

“What do you mean?” El asks quietly, now more confused than angry. 

“He’s so upset. I can see it in him,” Karen says. She sounds on the verge of tears. “It’s like he walks around with this storm cloud hovering over him. He barely gets any sleep. He avoids ever being at home.”

“Wait, _what?_ ” El says. This is all news to her. Except for their first day, Mike has been completely normal at school—or so she thought. If what Karen is saying is true, then Mike’s been hiding things from her. She’s reminded of his face after she asked him to make that promise back at Benny’s, and it fills her with a sickening cocktail of worry and sadness and anger all at once.

Karen goes on, oblivious to El’s surprise. “It’s been like this for so long now that, well, I know there’s no point to try and make him talk to me anymore. But he’d talk to you. I know he would.”

 _Would he, though?_ a voice in El’s head questions. _Why hasn’t he been telling you any of this then?_ She shakes her head to clear it away.

“Yeah,” she says lamely. “We’re best friends.”

Karen grasps her wrist, making El jump a little. The older woman’s eyes are fierce but imploring. “I need you to be there for him,” she says quietly. “I know my son. He pushes people away. But you can’t let him do that to you. It would help me sleep a little better at night knowing he isn’t completely alone. That there are still people—or even just a person—watching out for him.”

“Of course,” El says, although the fact that he already has pushed her away is staring her in the face. “Of course.”

Karen squeezes her wrist again gently before releasing it. She looks away, brushing at a tear that has made its way down her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she says quietly. “You can go now. Thank you, El.”

El doesn’t trust herself to speak, just nods and stands up. She walks out of the kitchen and through the house to the patio door almost in a daze, her mind racing with the implications of what Karen just told her. She’s always been able to read Mike so well. It’s been one of the things she’s loved most about their friendship. So it scares her that she didn’t even get an inkling about what Karen says Mike’s been going through recently. 

And here’s the thing. El knows she has no chance at Mike returning her feelings. She’s long since accepted that. It’s enough for her that they’re best friends. But now that she knows Mike has been keeping things like this from from her, she can’t help but start to spiral. _What does this mean for their friendship? Does he not trust her anymore? Do they not understand each other anymore? Are they not the best friends she always thought they were?_

“Shoot! Sorry, El!”

For the second time in three days, El crashes into Mike, and for the second time in three days, he grabs her to steady her. For some reason, that’s what does it—looking up and seeing him staring down at her with naked concern is what sets her off. 

She bursts into tears.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike has no idea what just happened.

It was all too quick for him to process—all he knows is that in what felt like the span of a second, El bumped into him, he reached out to steady her, then she started crying the moment she looked up and met his eyes.

“El?” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “El, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t say anything, just cries harder. He takes a quick look around him, and luckily, no one else seems to have noticed what’s going on. He tries to steer her back inside his house—maybe they can find a quiet room or something and he can calm her down away from the crowded backyard—but she shakes her head violently. “Not back in the house,” she manages to say in between sobs. 

“Okay,” Mike says placatingly, trying to hide his own panic. He grabs her hand and pulls her along to the end of the yard and around the corner of his house. There’s a small little alcove vacant of other people and out of earshot of everyone else in his backyard. It’s not as private as a room inside his house would be, but it’ll have to do. El yanks her wrist out of his grip and steps back, fiercely swiping at her wet cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“I could be asking _you_ the same thing,” El all but growls. She says it with enough force that Mike steps back, completely disarmed by her tone.

“What?” he asks. “What are you talking about?”

She glares at him. “You’re gonna play dumb now, _really?_ ”

“El, I seriously have no clue what you’re talking about,” Mike says. “You’re starting to worry me.”

She laughs humorlessly at that, and he would be lying if he said that didn’t hurt a little. “Mike, what happened to that promise you made me?”

 _Oh._ Mike licks his lips nervously and swallows hard, looking away from her. “El,” he begins, but he doesn’t know what else he can say to make it better. She obviously knows he lied to her. _How_ exactly, he isn’t sure—but based on his mother’s conspicuous absence from the backyard and El’s refusal to re-enter the house, he has his suspicions.

“You lied,” El says plainly. “Why did you lie?”

Again, Mike finds himself at a loss for words. Her glare seems to have robbed him of the ability to speak. He can feel himself withering under its harshness. He opens and closes his mouth, but no sounds come out.

Her lips twist a little, and her eyes glaze over with a film of tears again. “I thought we were best friends, Mike,” she says, and it’s like a sucker punch to his gut, how _hurt_ her voice sounds. “And yet you still don’t think you can trust me?”

“I do, of course I do,” he rushes to say. It’s the truth. He _does._ But sometimes Mike feels like he’s weighing her down. Like if he tells her what goes on in his head, that he’ll drag her to his level. And there’s nothing he wants less than that. A voice in his head—one that sounds an awful lot like his father’s—tells him that he’ll be an adult in a few months; isn’t it time he learns to deal with his emotions on his own, without relying on others?

He wants nothing more now than to tell that voice to fuck right off, though, because the look on El’s face might actually move _him_ to tears.

“Then why haven’t you told me that you haven’t been sleeping? Or that you’ve been staying out of the house?” she asks him. Tears are falling freely down her face now, but she makes no effort to stop them. He feels the urge to wipe them away—and to wipe the look on her face away, all his mistakes away while he’s at it. _Fuck._ El hardly ever cries, and he hasn’t seen her this upset over something in years. It makes him feel like shit.

“I’m sorry,” he says desperately, stepping closer to her. “I’m so sorry, El.”

She takes a long, shuddering breath and looks away from him for a few seconds. “I’m just worried about you,” she says in a calmer voice. “And, I guess, I’m mad that I didn’t notice. I feel like a bad friend.”

“You’re not,” Mike rushes to say. “You could never be a bad friend.”

El shakes her head. “I still feel like one. But I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have gotten mad. If you don’t feel like you can talk to me about things… if you don’t _want_ to tell me about things, I don’t want to pressure you.”

Mike’s heart drops. “No, El, it’s not that. It’s not that _at all._ ”

“Then what is it, Mike?” she asks. 

He swallows hard and looks away. “I don’t want…” he begins bravely, thinking he’ll tell her exactly what’s on his mind. But a wave of self-doubt stops him, and he quickly changes course. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you from now on. I swear,” he says instead, internally kicking himself for being such a coward. But his heart seizes up at the thought of telling El the truth. A part of him thinks that by voicing what he’s thought for so long, he’ll speak it into existence. That El will realize he _is_ dragging her down. That she’ll leave him.

“Do you promise?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. She looks like she wants badly to believe him. “And don’t say you do unless you mean it this time.”

“I promise,” he says without hesitation. “Of course I mean it.”

She regards him for a few moments, her face unreadable, before she nods slightly. He sighs in relief, shoulders coming down from the rigid position he was holding them in without realizing.

El steps forward and wraps her arms around him gently. He follows suit without thinking, and rests his chin on the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again. “I never want to hurt you.”

She sniffles against his chest, but he doesn’t feel any tears soaking his shirt. “No more secrets, okay?” she says. 

“No more secrets,” he repeats, holding her a little tighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe this hit 1k+ reads?! thank you all so much!!


	6. an angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.... hi! i don't know if anyone is still even reading this anymore because it's been over a month but here i am anyways! i'm so sorry to anyone who is actually keeping up with this story because i'm so bad at updating... i wish i could just sit around all day and write fic but school is a bitch. on the bright side, however, this is a really long chapter! this part of the story was meant to be two chapters, but i decided to combine them so you get this 10k monstrosity. anyway i'll stop talking now. enjoy! <3

Mike’s mind is blank for a few moments as he stares at the name on the top of his screen before he realizes— _oh yeah, it’s his sister calling._

He and Nancy used to be close, back when they were younger—but that’s little more than a distant memory now. She left for college the summer before his sophomore year and never looked back. Nancy never cared much for Hawkins to begin with, and once their parents’ fighting started to get bad, it seemed that she always had an excuse for why she couldn’t come home over school holidays. Mike’s over it, now—to be honest, he doesn’t really give two shits about whatever his older sister’s up to these days. Their interactions are limited to short text conversations every year around each other’s birthdays and sometimes the occasional quick call, and he’s okay with that.

So, yeah, it’s a bit of a surprise when she calls him out of the blue one evening. He blinks at his phone before picking it up and swiping the screen to accept her call.

“Hello?” he says hesitantly.

“Mike!” Nancy says brightly. 

“Nancy,” Mike responds, with considerably less enthusiasm.

She seems to pick up on that, and clears her throat uncomfortably. “So, uh, I wanted to call you to let you know I’m coming home this weekend.”

“You are?” Mike says. “Really? Why?” He doesn’t realize how rude that sounds until after he says it, but luckily, Nancy doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I thought you knew,” she says in a puzzled tone. “Didn’t Mom tell you? Dad got promoted. He has a work party at the country club on Saturday. We’re all going.”

“Oh,” Mike says stupidly. His mom probably did mention it some time or the other, but lately he’s been focusing a lot of his energy toward tuning her out whenever she talks to him. (It’s the trade-off he made when he decided to stop avoiding being at home so much. He knows how much that was worrying El, and it makes him feel guilty to leave Holly there by herself.)

“Well, I guess it slipped my mind,” he tells Nancy.

“Oh,” Nancy says with another awkward sort of chuckle. _God, this is so painful to sit through,_ Mike thinks.

“Well, I should probably go now,” he says stiffly. “It was nice talking to you, Nancy.”

“Wait!” she says, startling him. “Wait. I wanted to ask you—do you know if Steve still lives in Hawkins?”

“Harrington? Yeah,” Mike answers, confused now. “He coaches our swim team part-time. Why?”

“Well, I was going to ask him to go with me,” Nancy explains, making a valiant attempt at trying to sound less embarrassed than she is. “You know, because it’s a formal event, and all. You need to bring a date.”

“ _What?_ ” Mike sputters. “I didn’t know that. Why is that necessary?”

“That’s just what Mom told me,” Nancy says in a voice she probably intends to be placating. It doesn’t have the desired effect. “You know how these fancy country club events are. It doesn’t have to be someone you’re dating, though. You can ask a friend, like I am.”

Mike is silent for a few moments, still processing the fact that he has to bring a date. _What the hell?_

“How about El? Aren’t you still friends with her?” Nancy suggests.

“Yeah,” Mike says. “But that would be weird. We’re just friends.”

“So are Steve and I. It’s not a big deal unless you make it one.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says uncomfortably. 

“Yes, do that,” Nancy tells him. “You only have a few days until Saturday. She’ll probably want to buy a dress, get her hair done… all of that. It’s a black-tie sort of thing.”

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says, almost to himself. “El’s not very into that kind of stuff.”

“You never know,” Nancy says. “Make sure you mention that to her. Anyway, I’ve gotta go. I’m glad we talked. I’ll see you this weekend, all right?”

“All right,” Mike says distractedly, still mulling over the whole date thing. “Bye, see you.”

He ends the call, then sits down on his bed, letting his head fall into his hands. _God, I’m fucked,_ he thinks.

_(He has no idea, yet, just how much.)_

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike is unable to get that conversation with Nancy out of his head. It feels like a thorn in his side, something he just can’t ignore, no matter how hard he’s trying. In fact, last night, he went so far as to put aside his anger with his mom to ask her if it was true. And to his dismay, she confirmed it—no, Nancy wasn’t messing with him; he did have to attend the work party, and yes, a date was mandatory as well. “Handsome boy like you, you should have no problem finding one,” Karen had said, ruffling his hair. He had only scowled in response.

Two days have passed since then. It’s Friday now, and Mike hasn’t made any progress in finding himself a date other than to obsess over it every chance he gets. He hasn’t told any of his friends— _especially_ not El. Everytime he looks at her, he can’t help remembering what Nancy suggested about asking El to go with him. It’s just so _embarrassing._

This is what’s on his mind that morning as he stands around with the Party at their usual place in the parking lot, waiting for school to start. Mike stares off into space as Lucas and Will chatter on and on about something or the other. He wonders blandly whether it’s too late to step in front of a car or something. A full-body cast is surely a good excuse not to attend the party, right?

“Mike.” 

He jumps and looks around before his eyes settle on El next to him. 

“El,” he says in as normal of a tone as he can muster. “What’s up?”

“Why are you so quiet this morning?” she asks bluntly. “Is something the matter?”

Mike’s first instinct is to immediately say _no._ But something he’s been working on the past few weeks is being a little less guarded all the time. El asked him to let her in, so he will. Or, at the very least, he’ll _try._

“Kind of,” is what he says. He watches her eyes soften a little from how hard they were a moment ago, her lips twisting into a sympathetic frown. It’s enough to almost make him audibly sigh in relief.

_Since the barbecue, Mike has spent more than a few late nights replaying what happened. The sound of El’s voice, brittle and wavering as she tried not to cry. The sight of her tears when she failed. The pleading look on her face. He doesn’t know if he’s ever experienced anything worse than that—than seeing someone he cares so much about **that** distraught, all because of him. He’ll never forget how horrible of a friend he felt like at that moment. He never wants to feel like that again._

Back in the present, El tilts her head to the side. “I’m sorry. Do you wanna talk about it?”

Mike bites his lip. Does he? One part of his mind tells him _no, absolutely not; you won’t be able to get through it knowing Nancy suggested **her** to ask as your date, while the other argues yes, she’s your best friend, and you’re in trouble; you **need** her help._

“Yeah,” he ends up saying, almost resignedly so. “Yeah, I think I do.”

El blinks, like she wasn’t expecting that. “Oh,” she says. “Well, no better time than the present. You can tell me while you walk me to my locker.”

“Sure,” Mike says. “Thanks.”

El smiles. “Of course. We’ll be back,” she announces to their friends.

“Where are you two going?” Max asks, frowning at them. At that, everyone else turns to look at Mike and El, too. Mike groans internally. 

“Just have to get something from my locker,” El says breezily. “We’ll be back before the bell rings.”

“And you need to do that together?” Dustin asks quizzically. Mike levels him with a death glare. 

“We’ll be back soon,” Mike says drily. “Don’t miss us too much, all right?”

That earns eye rolls from all of them, but it allows Mike and El to leave without any further interrogation. 

It’s pleasantly empty inside their school. Mike can hear his own heartbeat in his ears as he walks silently next to El. He wonders how long she’ll let him go before forcing him to talk.

She clears her throat before they even reach the right turn to her locker. So, as it turns out—not that long at all.

“So?” she says, nudging him with her shoulder. “What’s up?”

Mike doesn’t quite know where to begin. He decides that a good point would be at the phone call that started everything.

“Well, Nancy called me the other day,” he begins. El looks over at him in shock, the appropriate response.

“Really? Aren’t you two on a birthday text basis _only?_ ” she asks. 

“We are,” Mike assures her. “That’s what made it so weird. Anyway, the reason she called me is because she wanted to know if Steve Harrington still lives here.”

“Why?” 

Mike winces. “That’s the thing. There’s this important promotion party thing for my dad that we all have to attend.” He pauses, preparing himself to voice the thing that’s been eating him alive for the past few days. “And they’re making me and Nancy bring dates.”

He doesn’t know how exactly he expects her to react—maybe laugh about it, or tease him, or join him in stressing over it—but silence is definitely something he wasn’t anticipating. Yet that’s exactly what follows.

Shock is etched on her face—her eyes are wide, eyebrows raised, mouth parted slightly when he looks over at her.

“El?” he asks, confused.

She recovers quickly, expression morphing back into more of a neutral one in record time. She clears her throat. “Oh,” she says in a voice that sounds a little bit strangled. “That’s… that’s something.”

“Yeah, I know,” Mike says. They reach her locker. She twists her combination on the lock, turning so that her back is to him. “And it gets worse.”

“How so?” El asks. Her voice is still oddly pitched, like the words are physically painful for her to get out. _What’s up with **that?**_ a small part of his brain wonders. The greater part of it, however, is still focused on his own dilemma.

“The party’s tomorrow,” he says. “And it’s one of those _fancy_ ones, too, where people have to get dressed up and all that, so who in the hell am I going to find to go with me on such short notice?”

El opens the door to her locker and leans into it, rummaging around. Her voice is muffled when she replies, “Wow, Mike… that’s a lot.”

“I know,” he groans, leaning back against the locker behind him. He cranes his neck up to face the ceiling. “And there’s no getting out of it, either—you know how my parents are about showing up to these things as a family.”

He lets out a dry chuckle. “Maybe if I get into a horrible accident, or something, I’ll be too incapacitated for them to force me to go.”

El slams the locker door shut. “Don’t say that,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.”

Mike lazily moves his gaze back down to her. “How, exactly, do you propose we do that?”

She bites her lip, thinking. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t know anyone who would be willing to go with you?”

“Yeah,” Mike snorts. “How many girls do you think I’m friends with?”

She looks at him almost in disbelief. Before he can ask about it, the bell rings to signal that school is now in session, and El purses her lips. She shoulders her backpack, looking away from him to double-check that her locker is locked as the hallway starts to fill with students on their way to first period.

“Well, I hope you find someone,” El says in a tone that’s almost downright _curt_ with how clipped and unfriendly it sounds. Mike quickly straightens up from leaning against the locker, confused by El’s sudden change in demeanor.

“Sorry if I was rude,” he says. “I know you were just trying to help.”

El just stares at him for a few moments, eyes searching his face, and it only makes him more confused.

“What?” he asks.

She averts her gaze and shakes her head. “Nothing. Anyway, I should get to class. I hope it all works out, Mike.”

She’s gone before he can say anything more.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

This is what El gets for being best friends with such an idiot, honestly.

God, she always knew Mike was pretty clueless—how else would he still be friends with her, given her huge, horribly conspicuous crush?—but somehow, he’s completely outdone himself today. Even for him, complaining about not having anyone to go with for his stupid party thing as if she isn’t _right there_ is a new low. She knows he’s never seen her as anything more than a friend, but _still._

It’s all she can think about the whole morning. She wonders whether he really will go through with that idea of getting himself in the hospital to avoid having to attend that party. A small, mean voice in her head almost finds the prospect amusing— _maybe **that’ll** knock some sense into that head of his._

But obviously, _realistically,_ he won’t. She knows that. But that begs the question: what _will_ he do then? 

Mike is on a first-name basis with maybe two other girls his age outside of El and Max—Lisa Smith, in AV Club, and his neighbor, Joanna, who’s homeschooled. Neither of those options seem very appealing, given that Lisa has a girlfriend and Joanna barely ever leaves her house. Which means that the only available person left for him to ask is _El._ So why in the hell didn’t he when he had the chance? 

_Then again,_ points out a small voice in her head, Mike could get anyone he wanted. _He’s on the swim team, and he’s nice, and he’s cute—if he wanted to, he’d be able to get **someone** to go with him._

That thought makes her feel slightly ill. She shuts it down right away. 

But by the time fourth period rolls around, El has grown sick of thinking about it. Her thoughts ping-pong around her head without respite—a never-ending cycle of Mike, that stupid party, the horrible image of him going with another girl… She just wants to _scream,_ it’s so aggravating. 

_You know what,_ she suddenly decides in the middle of solving differential equations, _if he won’t ask me, then I’ll just offer._

It’s probably (definitely) a stupid, reckless idea—born from annoyance and desperation and her own hopeless crush. If she was in her right mind, El would recognize that those feelings together are incapable of producing anything but a recipe for disaster. But El isn’t really using her head right now.

Either way, the security of knowing she has a plan—that she’s doing something, for once, instead of lying dormant in her feelings—is what finally gets her mind out of that hellish cycle of thinking, and for the next forty minutes, she enjoys the peace of not thinking much at all as she works on her math problems.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

When Mike gets to the Party’s usual table at lunch, Will is already seated there. He turns to face Mike as he’s sitting down.

“What’s wrong with El?” he whispers. “She was so distracted today in third period. She seemed mad. And also kind of sad? It was so weird.”

“What?” Mike asks. He hasn’t forgotten about this morning. Could this have something to do with that?

“Yeah,” Will says. “Like I said, it was so weird. She was like that the entire class.”

Mike looks away, cringing. Yeah, all signs point to him being to blame.

“What did you do,” Will says wearily. He says it like a statement rather than a question, as if he’s absolutely sure it’s Mike’s fault. _(Which it more than likely is, but still.)_ Mike looks up at him in outrage.

“Why would you assume it’s something _I_ did?” 

Will doesn’t dignify that with a response—just raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. Mike sighs. He might as well just tell Will everything. He’s the least likely out of all their friends to give him a hard time about it.

“Okay, well, long story short, I need to find a date to a party that’s tomorrow,” he says, blushing furiously. “And it’s tomorrow. And I don’t have anyone to ask.”

Will’s eyes widen. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “And I was telling El about it this morning, and she tried to help, but I guess I was kind of rude. I think I made her upset, or something. She sort of stormed off.”

Will stares at Mike incredulously for a moment, his mouth opening and shutting silently before he shakes his head. 

“What?” 

Will looks at him dead in the eye. “You’re the dumbest person I’ve met in my life.”

“What are you talking about?” Mike says, his voice rising a little. Will glares.

“‘You don’t have anyone to ask?’” Will repeats. _“‘You don’t have anyone to ask?’”_

“Well, no,” Mike says slowly. Is he missing something? 

Will groans loudly. “What about El, stupid?” he says. “She’s literally right there!”

“She’s my best friend, I can’t ask her to do something like this,” Mike protests. Will looks like he’s going to explode.

He inhales shakily, as if he’s close to going on a tirade. “What other choice do you have, Michael?” he asks. “Grow a pair, goddamn it. _Ask her._ ”

“I can’t,” Mike says, panicking. “I can’t do that. It’s too weird. She’ll think it’s weird.”

Will looks like he’s going to slap him. “You _can_ and you _will._ She’s coming over here right now. If you don’t ask her, I will.”

Mike whips around, and sure enough, El’s making her way to their table. _Fuck._ He turns back around to face Will. “I can’t do this, Will, it’s too weird. I’m telling you, it’s too—”

This time, Will actually slaps him. 

It isn’t particularly hard, but it stings a little. Mike brings his hand to his cheek and stares at his friend in horror. Will looks right back without sympathy. “So help me, Mike Wheeler, if you don’t ask her in front of me the second she gets to this table—”

“—all right! All right,” Mike says, afraid that Will has more than a slap in store for him next. 

He turns back around and watches El draw closer and closer to their table with his heart in his throat. He wipes his palms on his jeans and swallows hard, almost choking on his own breath when she makes eye contact with him. _Shit._ She stares back at him, biting her lip, almost as if she’s nervous herself—but what does she have to be nervous about?

Before he knows it, she’s sitting down next to him.

“Hey,” she says tentatively, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” Mike says breathlessly, his heart racing. Is he really about to do this? Will knocks his knee, hard, as if he knows what Mike is thinking. Yes, he is.

“Do you wanna go to the party with me?” he asks.

At the same time, she says, “If you want, I can be your date for the party.”

They both just blink at each other for a moment. El is the first to get over her surprise.

“Yeah,” she says, a light blush gracing her face. “Sure. I’ll go to the party with you.”

Will has to elbow Mike to get him to recover his wits. “Oh. That’s great. Thanks so much, El. I owe you.”

She smiles at him, practically glowing. “Don’t even mention it.”

“You either,” Mike says, suddenly serious. He turns to fix Will with a look, too. “Not a word, either of you. To anyone else.”

El’s face falls a little behind Mike’s back, but no one notices. “I mean it,” he continues. “I don’t want all the drama.”

“Okay,” Will says. “Fine.”

Mike turns to look at El, and she nods. “Yeah. Of course.”

He gives her a smile. “Thanks again. You didn’t have to do this.”

She returns the smile, but he doesn’t notice how brittle it is. Will seems to, though, and opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but Max drops into a seat across from him, and he shuts his mouth.

He steals a look at his friends, both so obviously, hopelessly infatuated with each other, even if one of them doesn’t quite know it yet. But this party will change that. Will can feel it in his bones.

_(He won’t know this until later, but he’s right. Tomorrow night **will** change that. It’ll change a **lot** of things, actually—but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)_

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

El breaks her agreement with Mike so quickly, it’s almost laughable.

It just sort of spills out of her in the car home with Max. 

They’ve been silent the past few minutes, both absorbed in their own thoughts, when suddenly, El blurts out, “I’m going on a date with Mike tomorrow.”

The car screeches to a stop and Max turns to look at El with wide eyes. _“What?!”_

 _This was a mistake,_ thinks El. “Max, you can’t just stop in the middle of the street,” she cries. A car honks angrily as it swerves around them. “Pull over!”

Max complies, driving to the side of the street and parking, but her eyes remain locked on El the whole time.

“Stop looking at me like that,” El snaps. She’s starting to regret having said anything at all, what with her friend’s palpable shock.

“Oh, well, _sorry,_ ” Max sniffs, but she looks away. “I’m just surprised. And so, so relieved. It’s been fucking exhausting watching you two dance around each other all the time.”

“We don’t _dance around each other,_ ” El protests, but Max goes on as if she didn’t hear her.

“Well? Who was the one who cracked first?” Max asks, leaning toward El conspiratorially. “It was you, wasn’t it? You finally got sick of all the romantic tension?”

“ _No,_ Max, it wasn’t like that—” El tries to say, but Max puts up a hand, smiling widely.

“Don’t tell me it was _Mike_ who asked _you,_ ” she says gleefully. “Wow, so he _isn’t_ a total brick wall?”

“It was both of us, actually,” El says loudly. She blushes. “And, well, it’s not exactly what you might be thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not exactly a _date,_ ” El says, scarlet now. “And it’s _definitely_ not romantic.”

Max blinks. “What?”

“He has this country club party and you have to bring a date to those,” El explains. “It’s not like he had anyone else to ask. I promise you it’s not that big of a deal.”

Max looks temporarily speechless, but she quickly bounces back. “A fancy party?” she repeats. A sly smile takes over her face.

“Well… yeah,” El replies slowly.

“El, don’t you see? This is your chance,” Max says with conviction. 

“My chance?” El repeats.

“Yes, your chance,” Max says impatiently. “If you play your cards right, this night might change everything.”

“My cards?” El repeats. She’s even more lost now.

“You’re sleeping over tonight,” Max tells her. “We’re going to get you ready for tomorrow.”

“Okay,” El says. “But what did you mean by _playing my cards?_ And _my chance?_ ”

Max waves her hand before she restarts the car and starts driving on the road again. “If I do my job right, you won’t have to worry about any of that. You’ll show up and he’ll be completely done for.”

She doesn’t elaborate further for the rest of the car ride, leaving El to wonder what exactly her friend has up her sleeve.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Nancy’s arrival is a bit of an affair that evening at the Wheeler residence.

In anticipation for her coming home, the floors gleam shinier than usual, the picture frames and furniture are dusted, the assorted shelves in the living room and kitchen have been reorganized, and the whole house carries a distinct scent of lemony cleaning liquid that isn’t quite masked by Karen’s fall-themed scented candles. 

Mike sits on the couch with Holly, trying to keep up with the cartoon she’s put on for them to watch on the TV. She always wants to discuss them with him after, so he has to pay attention, but it’s _hard_ when the show is this mind-numbingly boring. He covers his yawn with one hand, turning the other so that he can see the time on his watch. 6:50 PM, it reads. His dad should be back with Nancy any minute now.

His mom bustles around the kitchen, positively exploding with nerves. She’s taken great pains to make sure this night is perfect—from spending the whole day cleaning the house, to making all her best food, to forcing them all to dress up. It would be funny, but to Mike, it only highlights how broken their household has become. He doesn’t think normal families invest this much effort into what should just be a regular family dinner. He doesn’t think that children in normal families avoid coming home at all costs the way Nancy does. No, the Wheelers have long since drifted away from being a normal family. They’re in some new territory entirely now.

The doorbell suddenly rings. Mike lurches up, glad he doesn’t have to continue pretending to watch Holly’s show. She glares at him from her spot on the floor. “I knew you weren’t paying attention.”

“I was!” Mike lies. “I just wanna say hi to Nancy.”

She stares at him skeptically. “Really? Can you tell me a single thing that happened in this episode?”

Mike looks away. “Uh…”

“See! You lied!” Holly exclaims. “I knew it.”

There’s a sound of the front door opening. “Holly, Mike, come greet your sister,” Karen calls. 

“Coming!” Mike yells, relieved for the distraction. “Come on, Holls,” he says, putting out his hand for her to take. She takes it, but her expression is surly.

The two of them walk hand-in-hand over to the entryway. Nancy is hugging their mom, and her face lights up over Karen’s shoulder when she sees her siblings.

“Mike! Holly!” she beams, stepping out of her mom’s embrace to move to them. “I missed you both. You’ve grown so much!”

She puts her arms out, and Holly jumps right into them. Mike begrudgingly accepts a one-armed embrace from her after his mom shoots him a look. “Missed you too,” he says lamely. Nancy smiles awkwardly in response. The atmosphere of the room is suddenly very uncomfortable.

Their father appears in the doorway, one hand holding Nancy’s suitcase and the other pressing his cell phone to his ear. _Work call,_ he mouths at them, setting the suitcase down before making his way upstairs. 

Mike glances at his mom, whose face clouds over temporarily with disappointment as she watches her husband disappear up the stairs. Nancy and Holly both go quiet, and Nancy gently sets her sister back down on the floor.

“I’m starving,” she says as lightly as she can manage to their mom, touching her arm. “Do you think we could eat?”

Karen looks away from the stairs and tries for a smile. “Of course. I’ll put the food out right now.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Nancy says with a smile. She hugs her again. “It’s nice to be home again. You have no idea how much I missed your cooking.”

That draws out a real smile from Karen. She presses a quick kiss to Nancy’s cheek before letting go and all but dashing to the kitchen. 

_Wow, so she hasn’t completely forgotten how to deal with Mom,_ Mike thinks wryly. You’d think that after avoiding home for two years, she’d be at a loss tonight. But Nancy’s always been more than capable in all matters.

He and Holly wander over to the dining table. Karen and Nancy walk in with dishes of food and set them down before getting seated themselves. The aroma is fantastic.

His mom starts to serve them, shoveling food onto each of their plates. Normally, Mike would get annoyed at that because he prefers to do that himself, but he can’t bring himself to stop her today; not when she looks so happy when she’s doing it. His guess is that having all three children together at home after so long is dialing her maternal instinct up to its highest notch. She’s being a mom in overdrive.

They’ve all begun to dig in when Ted walks into the dining room. He drops into his regular chair and says, “Sorry about that—work call. Food smells amazing tonight. You’ve outdone yourself, Karen.”

Nancy shoots a surprised look at Mike. _I’ll explain later,_ he mouths. His father’s been in a good mood the whole week because of his promotion.

“Thank you, Ted,” Karen says, beaming. “I figured I should go the extra mile tonight. It’s been so long since we’ve all been under the same roof like this.”

“It has,” Ted agrees, peering at Nancy over his glasses. “You’ve been busy with college, huh?”

Nancy doesn’t falter a bit under his piercing gaze. “Yes. And my job.”

“Job?” Ted looks around. “I didn’t know you got a job.”

“I did,” Nancy tells him. “At the university library.”

Ted stares at her for a few moments before bursting out laughing. Everyone jumps. Mike glances uneasily between him and Nancy, who goes a little red. 

“You’re a librarian?” their father wheezes. 

“No, I’m just an assistant,” Nancy replies icily. He doesn’t seem to notice the edge to her tone through his fit of laughter, however.

“And they _pay_ you? To what, shelve books? Read to little kids?” Ted guffaws.

“Yes, they do,” Nancy says, jutting her jaw out defiantly. “And it’s a university library, so no, I don’t read to little kids.”

“Well, that makes it much better,” he snorts. Everyone is quiet. Holly looks uneasily at Mike, and he grabs her hand under the table to squeeze it reassuringly. 

“I’m sorry,” their father finally says after calming down, but the lingering smirk on his face makes it obvious that he really isn’t. “That’s great that you’re being independent, and all, Nancy.”

She just glares at him from across the table, lips screwed up like she’s holding back what she wants to say. Ted, again, is impervious to it.

“But you can send in your letter of resignation once you get back,” Ted continues. He pauses. “Do they even require you to send one of those? You’re just a library assistant, I don’t imagine it’s such an important job—in fact, they’d probably be glad to be rid of you. One less person on their payroll, right?”

“Why would I do that?” Nancy says. 

“Well, you don’t need the extra money,” Ted answers as if this is something obvious. “After my promotion, I can handle all your expenses for you. Even grad school, if you’re going. There’ll be more than enough for you to move out of that dingy apartment of yours into someplace nicer.”

Nancy’s mouth falls open, but no words come out for a few moments. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’ll have to start supporting myself at some point. I don’t see why I shouldn’t start now,” is what she finally says in a voice of forced calm.

Ted furrows his brow. “Now, let me get this straight: you don’t _want_ us to support you?” On his left, Karen covers her eyes with her hand.

“That’s not what I said,” Nancy tells him calmly.

“That’s what it sounded like,” Ted shoots back. His voice rises a little as he adds, “You sound really ungrateful right now, Nancy. Do you know how privileged you are? Do you know what some kids would give for their parents to support you like we are?”

Nancy opens her mouth immediately to respond, but Karen steps in before things can get uglier. “How about some dessert?” she says, standing up frantically. “The pie should be done cooling. I’ll bring it right out.”

“You made pie?” Ted exclaims, his grievance with Nancy seemingly forgotten. Mike resists the urge to roll his eyes. How typical of his father. 

Karen brings it out from the kitchen and immediately gets to work cutting them each a slice. “It’s a new recipe,” she says. “Tell me if you like it.”

Mike bites into it when he receives his piece. It’s delicious—the cherry filling explodes on his tongue, sweet and sharp. “It’s great, Mom,” he tells her. She smiles at him.

Ted makes a grunt of agreement. For a few precious minutes, they’re all silent as they enjoy the pie. Mike starts to think that maybe they’ll end dinner on a peaceful note, but of course, his dad has to ruin everything all over again.

“Are you two ready for tomorrow?” he asks, looking at Nancy and Mike. Holly doesn’t have to attend the work party because she’s so young and there will be alcohol—she gets to go to a sleepover instead, lucky kid. 

“Yeah,” Mike and Nancy reply. 

“You both have dates?” Ted asks. 

They nod. Ted looks at Mike in surprise. He tries not to let that sting.

“Who? You didn’t tell us you had a girlfriend.” 

Mike blushes. “I don’t. It’s just a friend from school. We aren’t dating.”

Ted leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh? So who exactly is this friend you’re taking, then?”

“El,” he mutters, his face on fire.

Ted raises his eyebrows. “El? Hopper?”

“Well, yeah,” Mike replies. “There’s only the one El in Hawkins, isn’t there?”

Ted grunts noncommittally. “She knows that it’s a formal event, right?”

Mike bristles. “Yes.”

“Well, I sure hope she does,” Ted mutters. “I don’t want her embarrassing us. She’s a very nice girl, of course, but, well…”

Mike feels a hot wave of anger rise inside him. “What are you trying to say about her, exactly?” he practically spits.

“Just that she doesn’t have a mother, her father isn’t well-paid, and that she’s probably never been to an event like this in her life,” Ted sniffs. “You can put it together, Michael.”

If looks could kill, the one Mike is giving his father would render him dead in seconds. Mike can tolerate digs at himself, even at his sisters, but a word against El is enough to make him see red. She’s off-limits. Always. Everyone who knows him knows that. Plus, she’s never given anyone a reason to go after her. She’s sweet, and friendly, and good with everyone she meets. He doesn’t know anyone better. His father is an utter _buffoon._ A classist, condescending, materialistic _buffoon._

Mike pushes his plate away and gets up from his chair. He ignores his mom calling after him and makes his way upstairs to his room in long, quick strides, practically shaking with anger. God, it’s times like this that remind him why he hates being home so much. For all his father’s scornful talk of El’s unconventional home life—what with her being raised by a single parent who works weird and long hours—Mike is sure he would trade his own for hers any day. Anything at all to get away from the bastard he gets his last name from.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

It’s been nearly a full day since El broke the news of the party to Max. She needs to be at Mike’s in six hours. And they still haven’t decided how she’s going to look.

El sits in front of Max’s vanity and stares at her reflection. They spent the morning trying to determine what sort of makeup look El should go with—they tried a bold smoky eye, but that didn’t suit El at all. Then they tried something a little more colorful, but El didn’t think it would be very fitting, considering it’s a fancy country club party. After that, it was look after look that fell somewhere in the middle of both extremes, but still none of them felt quite right. By the end of it, El’s face felt scrubbed raw from all the makeup application and removal, so Max suggested they switch focus to finding her a dress instead.

This is proving to be a difficult job, though—Max isn’t much for dresses, and she told El herself that she doubts the ones she has are at all right for the occasion. But she’s a good friend, and she’s been dutifully rummaging through her closet for something El can wear for the last ten minutes. Suddenly, she emerges with a frown.

“Sorry, El,” she sighs. “I don’t have anything.”

 _Shit._ “That’s fine,” El reassures her. She bites her lip as she ponders her remaining options.

“Don’t _you_ have anything you could wear?” Max asks.

El shakes her head. “Nothing that wouldn’t make me stick out at a party like this. I’m not rich.”

Max cocks her head to the side, thinking. “Are you absolutely sure about that? You don’t have _anything?_ ”

“No,” El insists. “I’m sure.”

Max cringes at that, rubbing the back of her neck as she thinks. “Shit.”

El buries her face in her hands. “I’m not gonna be able to find anything this late. I might as well tell Mike I can’t go anymore,” she laments in a muffled voice.

“Um, I don’t think so,” Max says. “I will not let you go down without a fight, El. We’ll figure something out. You are going on that date.”

El looks up at her wearily. “Yeah? How, when I don’t have anything to wear?”

Max looks to the side briefly before meeting her friend’s eyes again. “I know! Let’s go to the thrift store.”

El raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. “The _thrift store,_ ” she repeats. “You expect me to find something fancy to wear at the thrift store.”

“Yes,” Max says stubbornly. “What do you expect, El, really? That at these parties they wear ball gowns or some crap?”

“Not ball gowns,” El shoots back. “But, I mean, it’s a country club. And all of Mike’s dad’s coworkers are probably rich. So something _classy,_ you know?”

“We’ll find something,” Max assures her. “I know we will. You never know what you might get at the thrift store.”

 _That’s exactly the problem,_ El wants to say, but Max’s tone leaves no room for any more arguing. So, partly because Max is a little scary when she gets this vehement and partly because she’s well and truly run out of any other options, El follows her out of the house and into the car.

The thrift store is downtown, about a ten minute drive from Max’s place. It’s a small shop, not somewhere anyone would normally find El. But from the familiarity with which Max strides into it, it seems she’s been around here before. 

Inside are racks and racks of clothing, shelves of other objects, packed so tightly together that it’s almost as if they’re navigating a maze as El and Max walk through the aisles, searching for the dress section. Unfortunately, the shop doesn’t appear to follow any sort of organizational pattern. Jeans hang next to sweaters, which hang next to socks, which hang next to leggings. At this rate, they’ll be searching all day. 

“Can you go look on the other side of the store?” El asks Max. “I’ll look through these racks. We can meet in the middle.”

Max nods. “Let me know if you find anything,” she tells her before walking off.

For the next twenty minutes, El combs through rack after rack of clothes. She sees a few promising-looking dresses, but when she pulls them out to get a closer look, there’s always something wrong—either it’s too long, or it has a stain, or it just isn’t _her._ She’s just about ready to completely give up and accept defeat when Max lets out a shriek from the other side of the store. El jumps and turns around. Max frantically beckons her over to where she’s standing hidden by a rack of clothes.

“What?” El asks, walking over. Max all but runs over to her, an impressive feat given how narrow the aisles are. In her hands is a dress folded over in half so that El can’t quite see what it looks like.

“I found just the dress,” she says, eyes shining. “It’s the one. It’s definitely the one. It was made for you, El.”

El’s heart leaps a little. “Really?” she asks, hardly daring to believe that the thrift store might actually carry what she’s looking for.

“Yes!” Max exclaims. She grabs El’s wrists and pulls her over to the corner of the store, where there is a lone dressing room. She all but shoves El into the small space, drawing the curtain shut before handing her the hanger with the dress. “Put it on and tell me how you like it!”

“Okay,” El responds, a little frazzled. She turns her head to give the dress Max picked out a good look for the first time and gasps. It’s _beautiful._ Simple, but elegant; cute, but not childish; soft and comfy-looking, but not at all at the expense of its appearance.

“Was that a good gasp or a bad gasp?” Max asks from behind the curtain. El blinks, jolted out of her thoughts. 

“A good one,” she breathes. She can hear how starstruck she sounds, but she can’t help herself. “It’s perfect. You were so right.”

Max lets out a happy little squeal. “Come out, then, I want to see!”

“I haven’t tried it on yet,” El tells her. “I was admiring it.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry up,” Max orders.

El quickly pulls off her shirt and shorts, and gingerly pulls on the dress. The fabric slides softly against her skin down her shoulders, and when she turns to look at herself in the mirror, it brings a wide smile to her face. 

“Well? Are you done?” Max asks impatiently.

El pulls the curtain aside and steps out of it, her face positively glowing with happiness. Max’s mouth falls open.

“El, oh my God,” she gushes. “It looks even better than I thought.”

“It’s so beautiful,” El agrees giddily, twirling again. “I love it. I love it so much, Max.”

“Mike is going to forget his own name when he sees you,” Max sighs happily. “Trust me.”

El turns to cast a look at herself in the mirror. “Yeah?” she murmurs.

“Yeah,” Max insists. “And if he doesn’t? Who gives a shit? You look gorgeous either way.”

El smiles. “You know, I think so too.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

The dress issue resolved, El and Max have a quick lunch of tacos from the food truck outside the thrift store. El is feeling much more at ease until the two of them get back to Max’s place and she finds herself back in front of the vanity. Yes, she has a dress now, and they decided on a makeup look—natural and glowy, without too much flamboyance—but there’s still the question of her hair. The hour or so they spent looking for the dress hasn’t reset either of their brains whatsoever. They’re both still at an utter loss as to what they’ll do for the rest of El’s look.

“You should definitely put your hair up,” Max murmurs behind her, pulling El’s hair up into a high ponytail and studying it in the mirror. “It looks way more chic than if you left it down.”

“I can’t keep it up that high the whole night,” El protests. “Hairstyles like that always make my head hurt.”

Max rolls her eyes. “You are such a first grader.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” El says. “Sorry I have long hair. How about half-up, half-down?”

Max complies, pulling half of El’s hair up and gazing at it in the mirror. She shakes her head. “It still doesn’t look right.”

El lets out an irritated huff. “Well, then, what does?” 

Max gathers El’s hair closer to the tips and bunches it up a bit, preparing to tie it into a knot, when she catches sight of it in the mirror. “Oh my god,” she realizes. “I have an idea.”

“What?” El asks.

Max meets her eyes in the mirror. “It’ll sound absolutely crazy. But I guarantee it’s a good idea.”

El raises her eyebrows. “What exactly do you have in mind, Max?”

“Just trust me, okay? My instincts helped with the dress. Now let them help with your hair, too.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike frowns at himself in the mirror.

He has a suit on and it doesn’t look right at all. Maybe it’s just because he spent the entire summer lounging around in shorts and old T-shirts all day. Or maybe he just wasn’t built to wear suits—they make his already gangly frame look even more awkward. 

He glances at his watch, which tells him El will be here in about fifteen minutes. _El. Shit,_ he thinks, looking back perplexedly at his reflection. He looks like such an idiot; she’s definitely going to make fun of him. But there’s very little he can do about _that_ right now.

The doorbell rings, and it echoes throughout his house.

“Mike!” his mom yells from downstairs. “Mike, come downstairs!”

“Coming!” he yells back. He can hear the door opening, and Ted booming, “Hello, Steve!” He grabs his comb from his bedside table and rakes it through his hair, trying to tame it into less of the slightly wavy mess it’s become. It doesn’t do much. _Fuck._

“Mike, get down here!” it’s his mom again, calling from the foot of the stairs. She sounds annoyed. 

“I am, just give me a minute!” he yells back, trying with the comb again.

“Mike, I won’t ask you again,” his mom calls. “El will be here any minute now. We have to get going.”

“All right!” Mike answers, annoyed. He gives himself one more baleful glance in the mirror before sighing and turning away. The bell rings right as he’s coming down the stairs. Steve Harrington is talking with Nancy, also in a suit, and Mike feels annoyed at how much better he looks in his. 

“Hey, Wheeler,” Steve says, grinning at him. “You clean up nice.”

Mike glowers back at him. “Fuck off, Harrington,” he mutters.

“Now, Michael,” Steve shoots back, his grin no less prominent. “What kind of language is that to use in front of your girlfriend?”

Mike scoffs, begins to say _El’s not my girlfriend,_ but as he turns to face the open door, the words die on his tongue.

_Oh._

El looks… like an _angel._ There’s really no other way to describe it. 

And if his father was worried about her not fitting in at the party—well, that’s hardly a concern anymore.

All he can do is stare, transfixed, as she walks in through the door and turns to smile at his parents.

The first thing he notices is her dress—it’s white, with a simple flower pattern along the fitted waist and high neckline. It flares out from the waist to fall a few inches above her knees, swirling around her legs just so. It’s _gorgeous_ —it suits her so well, makes her look like some ethereal being. Mike suddenly feels even more like a schmuck in his expensive but horribly plain suit. When she turns to look in his direction, he notices something else, too—

“Your hair!” Nancy gushes next to him, stepping forward to envelop El in a sisterly hug. “It was so long the last time I was here, have you been keeping it short?”

“No,” El says, shaking her head. It makes her hair, newly chopped to where the ends just barely skim her shoulders, swish around her face a little. Mike finds himself a little hypnotized by the sight. “I just cut it today, actually.” 

“You look beautiful, El,” Karen says warmly.

“Thank you,” El responds, practically glowing. Something in Mike’s chest gives a peculiar movement at that—almost like a flutter. He swallows roughly, trying to get himself together as her eyes finally land on him. 

“Let’s get some pictures of you two before we start,” Karen says before either Mike or El can say anything to each other. She all but shoves them over to the bottom of the stairs, then promptly realizes she doesn’t have her phone on her. “I’ll be right back,” she tells them, before rushing off to find it.

“I’ll be waiting in the car,” Ted says. “Nancy, Steve, you two can start for the country club since you’re driving on your own.”

And as quick as that, it’s suddenly just El and Mike alone by the stairs. 

“Hi,” El says, giving him a once-over with wide eyes. He can’t place the look in them.

“Hi,” he says back in a voice that is still a bit rough. He clears his throat. “Hi. I—uh, thanks for showing up,” he tells her stupidly. God, what is going on with him? Why is he so flustered?

El cocks her head to the side, her mouth twisted like she’s holding back laughter. “Of course,” she responds. “Did you really think I’d leave you all high and dry?”

“No!” he says immediately. “No, I didn’t say that. I just meant… well, you know what I meant. I’ll just stop talking now.”

This time, she actually laughs, and there’s that weird feeling in Mike’s chest again. He looks away from her as his mom reappears with her phone in hand. 

“Get a little closer than _that,_ ” she huffs, gesturing for them to close the gap between their bodies. “Mike, put your arm around El.”

He complies, shifting a little closer and gingerly putting his arm around her. _He’s done this plenty of times before, so why is it so awkward this time?_

This doesn’t escape his mom’s notice. “Oh, come on, Mike, now isn’t the time for you to get shy. We have to leave soon. Stop acting like El will break.”

He blushes a deep crimson and shuffles closer to El, until her shoulder slots comfortably under his arm and her head is close enough that he can smell her floral shampoo. His heartbeat quickens of its own accord.

Karen snaps a picture, then lowers her phone with a rueful smile. “You’re both so grown-up now, I just can’t believe it.”

“Mom!” Mike groans. She gives him an exasperated look.

“Fine. Sorry for being a loving mother,” she says, shaking her head. “Let me get my purse. You two can go ahead and get in the car.”

Mike abruptly realizes that his arm is still wound around El and quickly snatches it back, blushing again. “Sorry,” he mutters, looking away. 

_It’s going to be a long night,_ he thinks.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike is looking at her again, and it’s starting to get annoying now.

El represses the urge to turn and stare right back. It’s been like this all evening, from the very moment she stepped into his house. She doesn’t understand why.

Her eyes travel surreptitiously to land on him on the other side of the backseat. The darkness must be shadowing her face, because he doesn’t look away. She allows herself an utterly self-indulgent moment of just staring at him from her cover of darkness. He looks devastatingly handsome tonight. She hasn’t seen Mike wearing a suit in _years,_ which is a shame, really—he looks like he was made to wear them. His hair is messy in an almost artful way, his pale skin almost glowing in the moonlight that spills onto his profile from outside. But her moment of appreciation is interrupted when her eyes finally fix on his face. There it is: that weird expression again. She can’t quite place it. Is he judging her? Is he completely appalled? Does she really look _that bad?_

Well, it can’t be that. El knows she looks good. 

“What?” she hisses at him. It’s probably the only word any of them in the car have uttered during the entire drive, and thankfully, she said it too quietly for his parents to hear.

Mike flinches a little in surprise. “What?”

“Why do you keep looking at me?” she asks.

His eyes go almost comically wide. “I wasn’t staring at you,” he mutters, looking away. 

“Yeah, you were,” she replies.

“I was staring in your general direction,” he corrects. “Why would I be staring at you?”

El flushes bright red and turns away to face the window before he can see. Inside, her heart skips, stuttering, but not in the fluttery way Mike is usually responsible for. It feels rather like disappointment instead. His words shouldn’t have this effect on her, but they do. They always do. 

_Well,_ she thinks defiantly to herself. _Not anymore. Not tonight._

She’s going to a fancy country club party, for crying out loud. She’s wearing a beautiful dress, and flaunting a new hairstyle, and she’s going to have the time of her life. _Screw Mike. This night isn’t about him._

Needless to say, the air between them is decidedly chilly for the rest of the car ride. It stays that way when he opens the car door for her once they arrive—she pointedly avoids his eye contact as she steps outside. And after they actually join the party, El busies herself in conversation with Nancy and Steve instead of even looking in his direction.

But that doesn’t improve her mood. No, it doesn’t make her feel better at all. And when Nancy and Steve drift off to talk to some old high school friends, she realizes she’s all alone. Mike is nowhere to be found, and his parents have been deep in conversation with some stuffy-looking old couple who El assumes work with Ted. She casts a self-conscious look around. 

The ballroom being used as the party venue is large, and full of people, but the vast majority are adults. People are either sitting at tables, or milling around, or eating. Absolutely no one is dancing, even though there’s a small orchestra playing some classical music piece at the far side of the room. But, to be fair, El doubts that anyone in this day and age knows how to ballroom dance.

“El Hopper?”

She almost jumps at her name, and turns to look around. When she locates the source of the sound, she raises her eyebrows.

“Troy,” she says a little warily. The boy in question walks up to her, a petite girl around their age on his arm. He and his date, too, are both dressed sharply, in a suit and dress respectively. They both beam at her, a gesture she finds a little difficult to return.

“Well, it’s been ages!” Troy exclaims. “How’ve you been?”

“Yeah, it has,” El agrees. “You haven’t been in Hawkins in a while, have you?”

Troy shakes his head. “No, not since middle school. I moved upstate before freshman year.”

“I see,” El responds. She doesn’t quite know how to interact with Troy—especially considering he was one of the Party’s biggest tormentors back when they were younger. While he never really came after her, all of them took it personally when he made fun of the boys during middle school. It’s just so disconcerting, how he’s talking to her now—like they’re old friends instead of practically enemies by association.

“El? I got us punch,” someone says behind her, voice trailing off at the end.

El turns around, and it’s Mike. He looks confused, adorably so, and he’s holding two drinks in his hands. His eyes flick from Troy and his date to El as he walks up to them. She can see recognition flare in his eyes once he’s next to her.

“Mike,” she says, cringing inwardly at the way he suddenly stiffens next to her as his eyes fix on Troy. 

Troy’s grin broadens a little as he cranes his neck up slightly to look at Mike. “Mike Wheeler! Wow, dude, I don’t remember you ever being this tall.”

Mike looks a bit like a deer in headlights as he stares at Troy. After a moment, it occurs to El that he doesn’t know whether or not that was a veiled insult. He’s conditioned to wait for the other shoe to drop—for Troy to add something mean at the end. Before the silence can get too awkward, she decides to jump in.

“Well, a lot of things change during high school,” she says mildly, glancing up at Mike to get her point across. He meets her eye, but she can’t quite pinpoint a difference in his expression.

“That’s for sure,” Troy agrees. “Like, I never would have guessed that El and you would be together, but, like she said, a lot can change in four years, right?”

El cringes visibly this time. That’s definitely the worst thing Troy could have said.

Mike bristles next to her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Well, y’know,” Troy says, slowly, like it’s obvious. “You guys were always just best friends.”

“Yeah, so?” Mike says. El can hear middle school him in his tone—the one that was endlessly called “frogface;” the one that was teased for his lack of coordination and interest in everything nerdy. 

“Hey, man, I didn’t mean to sound rude,” Troy says, putting his hands up. Despite how immature it is, El takes satisfaction in the sudden look of fear on his face. Wow, have times changed since they were kids—it always happened the other way around back then. “I was just surprised, is all. You’re cute together, I mean it.”

“That’s okay,” El tells him before Mike can say anything. “It was nice to see you again, Troy. Both of you have a good evening.” She puts a hand on Mike’s arm and gently steers him away with her, until there’s a decent amount of distance between them and Troy. 

She looks up at him when they come to a stop, and when he looks back, she can’t hold back her laugh. He follows right after, nearly doubling over, and in that moment, all El can think about is how glad she is that things aren’t weird between them right now. 

“Oh my god,” Mike says once he’s calmed down a bit. “Of all the things that could’ve happened at this party—”

“—we meet _Troy Walsh,_ ” El finishes for him. “Is that guy for real?”

“I didn’t even know that either of his parents worked with mine,” Mike says, shaking his head. “How did you start talking to him?”

“He just… came up to me,” El tells him simply. For some reason, that sends both of them into another fit of laughter. This time, people turn to stare. Mike rolls his eyes.

“Come on, let’s go outside,” he says, gesturing to an open door with his head. She nods, and he leads her out of the ballroom and into a small garden. It’s completely empty of people, but well lit by the light coming in from the windows of the room and various lanterns hung above. A stone bench stands on one side, and as they sit down, Mike hands her a glass of punch. 

“He just came up to you,” Mike repeats. “He just thought, ‘Why not randomly approach the girl who was friends with everyone I bullied back in middle school?’”

“I can’t tell you what he was thinking,” El says. “But yeah. That’s about what happened.”

Mike lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Wow.”

It’s then that El realizes that neither she nor Mike denied their being together to Troy. The thought makes her feel a little dizzy. She looks up at him to find that he’s already staring at her.  
And suddenly, the air between them feels a lot less light and full of laughter. Now, there’s something else between them. It’s unspoken, and she can’t even quite tell exactly what it is. But it’s there, hanging heavy over them like a sheet.

His lips part as if he’s going to say something, and El instinctively leans forward.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

_Mike will look back at this moment in the future._

_In fact, this memory will be something he’ll kick himself later for more than once. Yes, it’ll torture him for a long, long time._

_But, needless to say, neither of them know **that** just yet._

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

For a second, it’s almost like time has stopped completely. As if the rest of the world has melted away, leaving Mike and El alone on their little bench. And all he can think about is how pretty she looks right now.

The yellow light from inside casts a soft glow on her profile. _Angel,_ he thinks for the second time that night. She looks up at him, and his heart speeds up inside his ribcage.

“What?” she asks. It’s barely above a whisper. He can feel the touch of her exhale on his face. _When did they get so close to each other?_ a small part of his brain wonders. 

It takes him a moment to register her question. “What?” he repeats stupidly.

There’s an unreadable storm of emotions in her gaze as she studies him. “You’re staring at me again.”

He blinks and looks away as a deep blush crawls across his cheeks. “Sorry,” he mutters, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I don’t mind.”

At that, he chokes on his breath and looks back up, shocked. She’s staring right back at him, her face set confidently. The only thing that gives her away is the slight flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. 

For what might be the first time in his life, Mike Wheeler is speechless. 

Does that mean what I think it means? She doesn’t mind? 

“Mike?” she says, her expression suddenly worried. 

“Wait, you don’t—you don’t mind?” he begins to say, but he’s interrupted by someone else.

“Mike! El!”

It’s Nancy, standing by the door to the party room. “Both of you come back inside! They’re serving dinner,” she says, pointing behind her. “Hurry up!”

“Coming!” Mike yells back. He turns to look at El, to find her looking hard at him. Her eyes pose a question. He just can’t quite figure out what it is.

For a few tense moments, they just hold each other’s gaze, until El finally looks away. “We should go,” she murmurs, standing up. 

She doesn’t wait for him to join her before walking off to the room entrance. Mike stays seated, unable to move, weighed down by the thoughts swirling around in his head like a hurricane. He wonders if El got the answer to her question. His breath hitches as he realizes he has one of his own now.

_Is your best friend supposed to make you feel like this?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so........ how are we feeling? let me know what you thought below and leave kudos! it's really the only way i know that people like what i write and also i need the validation :-)  
> i'll see you all next time! hopefully there won't be a month between updates again. i'm not planning on having any more chapters this long... at least in the near future. thank you so much for reading. bye! <3


	7. sparks to ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i'm back !! i originally meant to have this chapter out like .... a long time ago but it ended up being much longer than i thought it would and life got kind of crazy with the election and all that in america. but i'm finally finished with this, so here it is! thank you to everyone who is still keeping up with this despite how awful i am at updating. i love you all so much!

Nancy is well aware she hasn’t been home in a while. Two years is definitely no small amount of time,  _ she knows that, _ but today has shown her just how long it’s been.

When she left home two years ago for college, her parents had still been trying. Their relationship wasn’t perfect by any means—it never was—but their fights were restricted to happening behind closed doors. Her father was always home for family dinner, and her mother limited her drinking to only Saturday nights every week. 

Two years ago, Holly had still been a little kid. Not that she isn’t one now, at eight, but she’s done quite a lot of growing up the last few years. She’s a great deal more wary than Nancy remembers herself or even Mike being at that age. She flinches at loud noises. She doesn’t like being around their parents. It worries Nancy.

And then there’s her brother, who is, by far, the person who’s changed the most since she left. She remembers a smaller, snarkier kid, fresh out of his first year of high school. Fifteen year old Mike was a huge nerd, always jumping from one show or video game or book series to another, his liveliness and thirst for knowledge matched only by those friends of his that he never was without. 

It seems that those friends are the only thing that hasn’t changed since she was gone.

Mike has grown in many ways over the years. He’s taller, more grown-up; has traded the chubby face that he was tormented for as a child for an angular, sharper one. He isn’t the kid he once was, either. Gone is the Mike that was constantly bubbling with questions, and the interests that were all-consuming, and… well, the part of him that always felt to Nancy like a little kid.  _ He really is an entirely new person, _ she thinks, and it makes her feel unbearably sad.

The only thing she can recognize about him is the loyalty that he shows to his friends; unflinching and steadfast, even when they aren’t around to witness it. She sees it when he gets up from the table in the middle of dinner, practically shaking with anger, after their father says those nasty things about El. (And, well, come to think of it, that right there is another thing that hasn’t changed about Mike—his temper.)

Yet the next day, when El comes over, Nancy starts to suspect that Mike’s fierce sense of protectiveness over El isn’t just him being a good friend. No, the look on his face when he lays eyes on her is so much more than that.

_ Her little brother has a crush. _

And if she had had any doubts on the matter, the rest of the night is quick to erase them. She catches them sitting together on that bench outside the ballroom, heads so close to each other she could swear they were about to kiss. And though she’s too far away to tell for sure, she just knows what his expression must look like now: dumbstruck, starry-eyed, the way he looked when El first walked in the door to their house. 

She only wishes she had noticed all of this  _ before _ she loudly interrupted them. 

As the night carries on, and her brother is pulled aside by Ted so he can introduce Mike to his colleagues ( _ “It’s never too late to start networking, the Wheelers know that!” Ted booms, hand clamped tight around Mike’s arm before he’s even fully in the door to the ballroom _ ), Nancy sticks close to El—partly because she doesn’t want her to feel out of place in a party where she and Mike are the only people she knows, and partly because she wants to see for herself if El returns her brother’s obvious feelings.

And from the longing, hopeful looks she casts in Mike’s direction when she thinks Nancy isn’t paying attention, it’s clear that El does. What’s more, her mood seems to grow more and more dejected as the night goes on. Her responses to Nancy’s attempts at engaging her in conversation become shorter. Her expression dims by the hour. And, go figure—because the same seems to be happening with Mike.

She finds him looking over at Nancy and El more than once when he’s supposed to be talking to Ted’s colleagues, his expression growing a little more strained and desperate everytime he does. By the end of the night, she’s sure of it—there is something going on between El and Mike. Guilt fills her as she thinks back to how she interrupted… whatever was happening on that bench. She doubts anything actually happened, but she’s sure that  _ something _ would have had she not barged in on them. And the tension of the broken moment has yet to be resolved, with the way Ted has been walking Mike around all night to speak with all his colleagues. She doubts he’s even had time to eat a proper dinner in between all of it.

By the time that the party begins to wind down and Karen finds them all to inform them it’s time to go, Mike and El still haven’t actually spoken. 

Then Steve makes things worse.

“El, why don’t you come with me?” he offers, walking up to her and Nancy. “I can drop you back home on the way to mine. It would be easier than having to get your dad to pick you up, right?”

Nancy wants to scream at him, but she holds her tongue, because he’s technically right. It’s just that if El goes home with him, there’ll be absolutely no chance for her to get to talk with Mike. And she has a bad feeling that if they don’t resolve what was happening in that garden, whatever is going on between them will implode on itself, leaving ashes and smoke in its wake instead of the sparks and fireworks she knows are possible. 

She turns to look at El, silently praying that she has the good sense to decline Steve’s offer, but the younger girl responds with a simple, “Sure, that would be great, as long as it isn’t any trouble.” 

Nancy doesn’t miss the resigned look on her face when she says it, though—as if she’s given up. So as she stares after Steve and El walking out of the ballroom together, she makes a decision.

Because how will these poor children ever find their way to each other if she  _ doesn’t _ step in?

She bides her time, waiting for the perfect opportunity. She can’t speak to Mike in the car, because Ted is suddenly very talkative—he prattles on for seemingly the entire car ride about his colleagues, and how thanks to his connections, Nancy and Mike are set for when they enter the workforce—bullshit that neither of them really pay any attention to. It doesn’t escape Nancy’s notice how dejected Mike has looked since he finally joined her and her mother after speaking with the last on Ted’s long list of colleagues, only to find El gone. He’s done an impressive job of hiding it, but she is his sister, after all. There’s very little he can truly conceal from her.

Then,  _ finally, _ they reach the house. Ted and Karen retire to their rooms upstairs immediately ( _ rooms, _ plural, because sometime while she was gone, they stopped sleeping in the same bed—another in the long list of things that have changed since she lived here). Mike, too, trudges to his own room in a bit of a daze, no doubt tired from all the socializing he’s had to do the past few hours. Nancy follows him up quietly, suddenly torn over whether she should wait until tomorrow or strike while the iron is hot.

She ponders this as she gets ready for bed, and initially thinks she should wait until later. But as she settles into her bed, she hears Mike walk by her room, and a voice in her head insists that this can’t wait for later. She’s leaving tomorrow morning. Yes, it’s best if she talks to him immediately.

So she throws aside the covers and walks out of her room, tiptoeing down the stairs to follow him to wherever he’s disappeared to. It turns out to be the kitchen, where he’s getting himself a glass of water.

“Mike,” she whispers loudly. He nearly jumps a foot in the air before turning around and relaxing when he realizes it’s just her.

“You scared me,” he replies. “What is it?”

“I need to talk to you,” she says firmly. He turns the tap off and looks at her wearily.

“Can it wait? It’s been a long night, Nance—”

“No, it can’t wait,” she tells him. “This is important, and I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”

He regards her for a few moments before seeming to realize she won’t budge. With a sigh, he leans back against the countertop and gestures for her to start talking.

“I think I interrupted something today,” she begins. “When you and El were on that bench outside.”

A strange look crosses Mike’s face. “What are you talking about?”

“When I called you in for dinner,” Nancy says. “I saw… well, how close you looked on the bench. I knew right away that I was intruding.”

Red blossoms on Mike’s cheeks, and he looks away from Nancy. “I didn’t know you’d seen that,” he mutters. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, is that all? Can I go now?”

Nancy ignores him and presses on. “And I also know you both didn’t get to talk after that.”

Mike doesn’t say anything, but looks up after a few moments of silence. He seems to realize that Nancy is waiting for his response. “Well, yeah,” he finally says, rubbing the back of his neck. “There was nothing to talk about.”

“Really? Nothing at all?” Nancy asks, raising her eyebrows at him.  _ God, does he have to make this so difficult? _ “So then what was all that tension the rest of the night about?”

“Tension?” Mike repeats. 

Nancy wants to bang her head against a wall. “Yes, Mike! Tension! Don’t think I didn’t catch those looks you kept giving each other all night.” 

“Looks? We weren’t giving each other  _ looks _ ,” Mike says defiantly.

“Yes, you were, whether you were aware of it or not,” Nancy replies indignantly. She’s starting to get annoyed now. “Now, what’s your next move?”

“My next move?” Mike frowns. “I don’t have a  _ move. _ She’s my friend. This date thing was her doing me a favor. We’re just going to… go back to being friends. There’s not much else to it.”

“Except there is,” Nancy explodes. “She likes you, Mike. And I know you like her, too.”

At that, Mike steps back as if her words physically affect him. He looks a little like a deer in headlights, his eyes panicked and face suddenly pale. “What are you talking about?” he sputters.

A frustrated noise very much like a growl rumbles in Nancy’s throat. “Mike, don’t play dumb.”

He collects himself and gives Nancy a flat stare. “Nancy,  _ like I said _ , there’s nothing going on between me and El. We’re  _ just  _ best friends. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“—just because you’re best friends doesn’t mean you can’t be anything more,” Nancy breaks in exasperatedly. “And, believe me, I know what I saw.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Nancy,” Mike says angrily. And dimly, Nancy knows that she should back off. Mike doesn’t take well to being pushed like this. But she can’t just give up. Not now. Not when she’s so close.

“Yes, I do, actually,” she shoots back, voice rising to match his volume. “I’m your older sister, in case you’ve forgotten. I know you. I know El.”

Mike’s face becomes frighteningly blank at that, and right away, Nancy knows she said the wrong thing.

“You know me,” he repeats quietly. “You know me? You know  _ El _ ?”

“Mike, wait,” Nancy says softly, a heavy feeling of dread settling over her. “I didn’t—”

“You don’t know me.” Mike says over her, his voice ice-cold. “You don’t know anything about me, or this family, much less El,” he continues. “You’ve been gone for years. You don’t get to say that.”

“Well, I’m still your sister,” Nancy babbles. 

They’ve never talked about this. They’ve been taught since they were little to keep family matters private. To keep up appearances. So Nancy has more or less gotten away with her years of pretending like she doesn’t have a family back home in Hawkins. But Mike… Mike holds on to things. She should’ve known this was something that would keep bothering him. 

“But you’re right, of course, I never should have left you all like that. I was just—stupid, and I’ve always wanted to get out of this town, you know that, and when Mom and Dad started fighting more, well—”

Mike’s gaze is hard and unforgiving. “Yeah. You shouldn’t have. But you did. You did leave.”

“I know,” Nancy says desperately. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He holds her gaze for a few moments before looking away and letting out a humorless laugh. Nancy feels her stomach drop at the sound.

“It’s fine,” he says lightly, but she can hear in his voice the bottled-up emotions he’s been carrying around since… well, probably the moment that she left. “I don’t need you. I haven’t needed you for a long time. That’s why it’s so annoying how you think you’re doing me some favor by trying to push me with El.”

Nancy lets out an audible gasp at that. It’s like he sucker punched her. She deserves his words, his  _ anger, _ she knows she does, but that doesn’t make them any more bearable.

Mike looks at her. “You know, El was the one who was there for me when Mom and Dad were fighting. Not you. El. So, sure, maybe we’re closer than you think is normal for best friends. But before you start making weird assumptions about our relationship, maybe consider the fact that you were responsible for it.”

Nancy opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She feels like an absolute monster, a  _ despicable _ person, because Mike is  _ right. _ She should’ve been there for him and Holly these past years. No matter how much she wanted to leave Hawkins behind forever, that never should have come before her responsibilities as an older sister. To protect her younger siblings. To be there for them. But, no—she did exactly the opposite. Deserted them when they needed her the most. So, really, can she blame Mike for his anger? For his attachment to El? Maybe he’s right. She has no right to assume anything about either of them.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, unable to look him in the eye. “I’m so sorry, Mike.”

“It’s fine,” Mike replies curtly. “I didn’t tell you any of that to get your pity. I told you because I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

He walks past her, and this time she doesn’t stop him. Right as he’s ascending the stairs, she hears him turn and say, “See you next time you decide to stop by for two days. If that even happens. Safe journey back.”

Then it’s quiet. Nancy is alone.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Max wakes up to the blare of her ringtone.

Her room is only lit by a single lamp on her bedside table, and it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Groggily, she sits up and pats around her bed for her phone, then turns it over once it’s in her hands.

The sight of El calling is enough to jolt her out of her sleepiness. Max quickly accepts it, all but smashing her phone against her ear.

“Hello? El?”

“Max, hi,” El says. 

“I sent you, like, 15 texts,” Max scolds her. She eyes the digital clock on her desk. “You said you’d be back by midnight. It’s been two hours. I fell asleep waiting for you to reply to me.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have called so late. Are you tired?” El asks worriedly.

“No, forget that,” Max says impatiently. “I’m fine. Now start talking. How was it? Did you kiss? Are you finally together now?”

She’s half-joking, and fully expects El to shut her down immediately the way she always does, but instead, she’s met with a silence on the other end—one that’s just long enough to worry her. 

“El?” she asks. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” El responds. “Sorry. I’m still here.” Her voice is just a tad too thin—it sounds like it’s on the edge of breaking. And that’s when Max knows something is wrong. 

“What happened?” Max asks in a hushed voice. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything’s fine,” El says quickly. “ _ I’m _ fine.”

“Well, then what happened? And don’t say nothing, I  _ know _ something’s the matter—”

“—nothing,” El says loudly. Max winces and pulls her phone away from her ear a little. “Nothing happened, Max. That’s the problem.”

It takes a few seconds for Max to understand, then a few more for her to collect herself enough to respond. “What?” is what she finally says, horrified. “He saw you like  _ that _ ? And was with you for hours? And  _ nothing happened? _ ”

El hesitates on the other end. “Well, not nothing. I suppose I was being dramatic,” she admits. “But it might as well have been nothing.”

“I’m confused,” Max complains. “Will you stop talking in riddles? What happened  _ exactly _ ? Spit it out.”

“Fine,” El replies with as much bite as Max. Still, it’s a relief to hear her like this instead of all dejected, like she sounded earlier. “Well, for starters, he was just… weird, the whole night.”

“Weird how?”

“Weird like he didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near me,” El says quietly. “And he kept…  _ side-eyeing _ me.”

“Side-eyeing you?” Max repeats questioningly, her heart sinking. Yet a small part of her points out the fact that this is extremely uncharacteristic of Mike. She knows very well how he usually looks at El—all soft and open, as if she hung the moon. “Are you sure you didn’t—”

“I know what I saw, Max,” El interrupts flatly. 

“Sorry,” Max mutters. “But it just doesn’t make sense. This isn’t like him. You’re telling me he was like that  _ all night? _ ”

El pauses. “Well, not  _ all _ night.”

Max feels a rush of relief. “I knew it,” she says triumphantly. Her voice turns softer, more consoling, as she continues, “So, nothing happened. That’s fine. You didn’t go to this party just for him—”

“Something  _ did _ happen,” El says, cutting her off.

“What?” Max asks, bewildered. “But I thought you said—”

“Just listen,” El tells her. “I’ll explain, all right?”

“Okay,” Max says slowly. A few beats of silence follow before El starts to talk.

“There was a moment,” she finally says, her voice hushed and faraway, “When we were alone, and I could’ve… I could’ve  _ sworn  _ he was about to kiss me, Max.”

“ _ What?  _ El, that’s amazing!” Max damn near screeches, the ungodly time forgotten. But quickly, the excitement she has for her friend is replaced by confusion. “But I don’t understand. How did he go from being weird to you all evening to almost kissing you?”

“Hell, I don’t know, Max,” El says. “It just happened?”

“Are you kidding me? That’s not something that just  _ happens, _ ” Max says. She hears El begin to protest, and quickly speaks over her. “Anyway, we can discuss that after. Tell me what happened next.”

“Nothing,” El says dully. “Literally nothing. His sister walked in on us, and after that, his dad wouldn’t let him out of his sight. And then Nancy’s date Steve gave me a ride home before we could talk again.”

“That’s it?” Max asks in disbelief. “That’s how it ended?”

“Well, yeah,” El says. “So? What do you think of it all? Still convinced he likes me back?”

Max is silent for a few moments as she mulls everything over. At last, she says, simply, “Yes.”

El lets out a humorless laugh. “Did you listen to a word I said?”

“Yeah, I did,” Max responds. “And I heard everything you didn’t, too.”

“What are you even talking about, Max?”

“You said he was being weird, right?” Max asks. “That he didn’t want to be near you? That he kept staring at you?”

“Well, yes—”

“—and did it occur to you that, maybe, he wasn’t judging you… but that he was  _ nervous _ ?”

“Nervous about  _ what? _ ” El shoots back.

“About  _ you, _ El,” Max says impatiently. Why is it taking her so long to connect the dots? 

El is speechless on the other end, and Max takes the silence as an opportunity to further drive her point. 

“Believe me,” she says. “If he was repulsed by you, he wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with you, let alone try and kiss you.”

“I guess you’re right,” El admits. “It’s just…”

“You wish something had come of it, I know,” Max finishes for her. “I get it. And I’m sure he’s thinking the same exact thing right now.”

“Really?” El asks. And this time, Max is happy to hear, there’s a hopeful note in her tone that wasn’t there before.

“Yes, really,” Max assures her. “Don’t you think he’d be upset too? You’re not the only one in love.”

“It’s not  _ love _ ,” El corrects. That’s when Max knows for sure that El is back to normal—not the moping, heartsick mess she sounded like a few minutes ago.

“So, what now?” Max asks her. “What are you gonna do?”

“The reason I called was so that  _ you  _ could tell me what to do,” El tells her. “Which one of us actually has relationship experience?”

“All right, well, if I were you, I would text him right away,” Max says after a moment of thinking it over. “I would ask him to come over. And then you’d both talk it out. And, hopefully, it would end with a passionate declaration of love. From him, of course, not you. Let him chase  _ you _ for once.”

El laughs softly. “I highly doubt any of that last part will happen. But the rest seems pretty solid.”

“Trust me, it  _ will _ happen. My expertise got you this far, didn’t it?”

“That’s true,” El agrees. “Well, I should go to sleep. And you should too. Thanks for waiting up for me. And for all your help.”

“Of course,” Max smiles. “Good night.”

“Good night,” El says back before ending the call.

With bated breath, she opens her messaging app and scrolls to her last conversation with Mike. And although the message she’s about to type is completely innocuous—something she’s said before countless times without a second thought—that doesn’t do anything to curb her anxiety. 

**_wanna hang out tomorrow? we can have a movie night_ **

She hits send, watches it deliver, and then stares at the message for a few moments, as if that will make Mike read it and reply. But reality sets in and she remembers how late it is. He’s probably asleep. He’ll read it in the morning, and say yes, and come over, and then…

_ I’m getting ahead of myself, _ El realizes, and puts her phone facedown on her bedside table. She clicks off her lamp and gets settled beneath her covers, eyes closing suddenly of their own accord. God, is she tired… Nothing would be better than sleep right now.

And it comes in what seems like no time at all. El drifts off into a peaceful slumber, completely unaware of the turmoil Mike is going through at the same time on the other side of town.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

It takes about fifteen minutes after Mike blows up at Nancy, after he’s finished brushing his teeth and gotten into bed, for his anger to wear off a little. 

That’s not to say he feels  _ guilty _ , or anything—he knows that sometimes he can let his temper get the best of him, but he also knows that Nancy deserved it.

He hears her in his head again, telling him in that god-awful patronizing tone of hers that she  _ knows _ him. A familiar wave of anger crests inside him, along with small undercurrents of some other things he’s trying  _ very hard _ to ignore.

Nancy’s words brought out a side of Mike that’s been repressed since she left—a barely contained storm full of potent, destructive emotions. Somehow, those words were what it took for him to unleash what’s been years’ worth of bottled-up anger and resentment.    


He should feel better, now that those feelings are no longer taking up space inside him. Telling her what’s been on his mind for so long should have been cathartic. He should feel better. 

But, for some reason, he doesn’t. At all.

If anything, he feels worse.

Because possibly the worst part about that whole argument is the fact that Nancy’s right.

He knows now, after everything that happened tonight: he does like El. More than he thinks he should a friend, no matter what nonsense he told Nancy. 

And there’s a not-so-small part of him that resents how easily Nancy is still able to read him—how even though she’s been gone so long, she hasn’t lost her footing in their family whatsoever.

It bothers him more than he’s willing to say (or even think too long about) that her leaving seems to have had much less of an impact on her than on him. 

His phone suddenly buzzes with a notification, and he damn near jumps. Squinting through the darkness, he pats around for it on his dresser until he has it in his hands. 

He has a message from El.

**_wanna hang out tomorrow? we can have a movie night_ ** _ , _ it reads. 

He stares for a few moments, rereading it over and over again, trying to see if there’s anything to be read between the lines. It’s a simple message at face value—he would’ve thought nothing of it a week ago. But, well, things have changed since then. He puts his phone down and runs a hand through his hair nervously. Suddenly all he can think about is her on that bench with him, so close he could feel her breath on his face, could see the change in her expression when she told him she didn’t mind him staring at her.

“I like El,” he says to himself quietly, trying out the sentence on his tongue. “I like my best friend.”

His heart rate quickens out of nowhere, and he sits up, heaving a deep breath.  _ Fuck, _ it dawns on him,  _ I like my best friend. _

Suddenly it feels very real. He likes El Hopper. His closest friend. The girl he’s grown up with, who knows everything about him, who he almost  _ kissed _ just a few hours ago.

He likes  _ El _ —the only constant he has in his life right now. 

The only person he knows he absolutely can’t lose.

If Mike’s heart was speeding up before, now it’s as if it’s been stopped in its tracks. Suddenly, it feels heavy, sinking inside him like a stone.

_ The only person he knows he absolutely can’t lose. _

With that sucker punch of a realization comes another in quick succession: he  _ can’t _ like her. He can’t fall for her, because at the end of the day they’re just that: best friends. And he’d be a fool to think they could ever be anything more. That El would even  _ want _ to be anything more.

No, they’re better off how they are. Best friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

He looks back at his phone, at her message on the screen. He thinks about how difficult it’s going to be to face her, after everything that just happened—not just at the party, but with Nancy, too. 

_ Stop it, _ he tells himself desperately.  _ Don’t make it worse than it already is. _

He looks back at his phone and swallows heavily. He can’t avoid her forever. 

So he types out a simple  **_sure_ ** in response to her question, then puts his phone back on his dresser. 

Resolutely, he lies back down on his bed and closes his eyes, scrambling for anything to think about that will take his mind off of her.

Lucky for him, the exhaustion of the evening catches up to him soon enough, pulling him into a deep sleep, but not before his thoughts drift to El again—specifically, about how he’s going to have to look her in the eye tomorrow and act as if he wasn’t seconds away from kissing her just the night before. 

The last thing he thinks before he finally drifts off is that it’s going to be easier said than done, not falling for her.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

When El wakes up the next morning, her mind is blank for a few moments. Then everything comes back to her all at once—the party, the aftermath, calling Max, texting Mike—and she bolts up, scrambling to check her phone.

She scrolls through the various notifications she received last night until she reaches what she’s looking for: Mike’s reply to her message. 

It’s a simple “sure,” sent to her a few minutes after she fell asleep. And although it’s a little… well, unenthusiastic, El’s nerves are too amped up for her to pay much attention to that. She all but jumps out of bed before racing downstairs. She has a lot to do by the time Mike shows up—

“El?”

She turns around at the foot of the stairs to see her dad walking out of the kitchen.

“Good morning,” she says, a little surprised that he’s home. He’s been so busy with work the past few months, she’s grown used to having the house to herself most days.

He raises his eyebrows. “What happened to your hair?”

“My hair?” she repeats, reaching up to touch it, before she remembers. She feels a sudden wave of self-consciousness—not at the prospect of him being mad, or anything; he’s always been supportive of her expressing herself however she likes—but at the prospect that he might not think it looks good. There aren’t a lot of people El actively seeks the approval of, but her dad is at the top of the list. “Oh… yeah, Max cut it yesterday when I was getting ready at her place.”

“Why?” he asks, wrinkling his eyebrows. 

“I just wanted a change,” El shrugs. “You know. A new look.”

Her dad studies her thoughtfully. “Well, I think it looks good. Bitchin’.”

El smiles widely at that. “Thanks, Dad.” 

She walks past him, into the kitchen, and he calls behind her, “Any plans for today that I should know about?”

El turns to look at him as she takes milk out of the fridge. “Mike’s coming over. We’ll probably watch a movie or something.”

“Didn’t you two just hang out together last night? And at school?” her dad complains good-naturedly. “Jesus, don’t you ever get sick of each other?”

El chuckles. “I guess not.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

That afternoon, the doorbell rings right as El’s finished prepping her living room. She’s brought down pillows and blankets in case Mike stays for a while, set out popcorn and some other snacks, and even vacuumed the carpets and furniture—all products of the nervous energy that’s been building inside her since this morning. She jumps up and walks over to the door, smoothing her hair and clothes down just so she has something to do with her shaking hands. Heart in her throat, she turns the doorknob and pulls open the door.

“Hi,” she says in a tone that’s just a tad too breathy to sound normal.

Mike’s eyes slide down to her, unfocused in a way that has her questioning whether he even heard her, or registered where he is.

“Hey,” he says after a moment. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and despite herself, El follows the movement with her eyes. “So… are you gonna let me in now?”

“My bad,” she mutters, blushing, as she steps aside. She shuts the door behind him, and leads the way to the living room.

He plops down unceremoniously on the couch and she sits down next to him. A sudden burst of bravery encourages her to leave only an inch or so of space between them—not so much that she’s being weird, but definitely less than she normally would.

He looks up at her from where he was looking down with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, like a deer in headlights, and that wave of boldness seems to desert her. She surreptitiously moves back a little and clears her throat, trying to salvage the moment from becoming too awkward.

“So…” she begins, then trails off when she realizes she doesn’t quite know what to say.

Mike opens his mouth, but it takes a moment or so for anything to come out. “I just wanted to—” he begins, his voice cracking a little. “I just wanted to say. Thanks for coming to that party with me. Yesterday,” he starts over. His voice is almost robotic, like he rehearsed these exact words before coming here. “I know it was probably super boring for you, but you still came. So… thanks.”

El is speechless for a moment before she regains her wits. “Mike, I—”

But he doesn’t seem to be finished. “And, well, I just wanted to say, thanks for being such a good friend. It means a lot to me.”

_ Oh. _

And just like that, any lingering vestiges of hope seem to crumble at once in El’s chest. She looks away from Mike sharply, desperate to collect herself before looking back at him. He can’t see her like this. He can’t know how she feels. Not when he obviously doesn’t feel anything for her  _ at all. _

_ (What she doesn’t know is that he’s not looking at her, either. She doesn’t know that the words coming out of him are practiced, yes, but only because repeating them over and over earlier today was his way of lessening their torture.  _

_ No, El knows none of this. Only that she feels like her heart is shattering into a million pieces, because last night meant nothing to him, and Mike only sees her as a friend, and she just feels so  _ **_fucking stupid._ ** _ ) _

Somehow, through the sudden tightness in her throat, she chokes out, “Yeah. Of course. No problem.”

They’re both silent a few moments after that, which gives El enough time to blink away the tears that were threatening to spill over, and Mike enough time to regain his ability to look at her again. 

“Well… do you want to start the movie? Which one did you choose?” he asks in a valiant attempt to cut the tension that’s now settled over them. 

El realizes she has two choices: she can let him, or she can refuse. She can pretend like last night never happened, or she can look him in the eyes and  _ force _ him to talk to her about it.

_ So, then, yesterday meant nothing to you? _ she thinks of saying.  _ You weren’t about to kiss me? You stared at me the whole night for no reason? _

But as she turns to look back at him, she sees how blank his face is—how, it seems, what he just said didn’t affect him whatsoever—and the words die on her tongue.

_ (She doesn’t know it’s a mask.) _

She tilts her chin up a bit, almost defiantly, and decides then and there that if he doesn’t care, she doesn’t either.

“I thought we could marathon the Star Wars prequels,” she says as evenly as she can. Somehow, she manages not to sound like she wants to cry, which is how she actually feels, and she tries to take some pride in that. It doesn’t make her feel much better.

“Oh, my favorites,” Mike says, smiling.

_ (El doesn’t look hard enough to notice that his expression is woefully brittle; that his smile is just shades away from being a grimace.) _

“Yeah, I know,” she says in a light tone, turning her attention to the TV, where the movies are already queued up. With a click of the remote, the movie begins, and El stares hard at the screen. She isn’t really even watching what’s going on; she just needs to focus her eyes on  _ something  _ if she wants to avoid crying. 

After a few more minutes of tense silence, Mike clears his throat uncomfortably. El refuses to look at him.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, talking in a low tone so as not to speak over the movie. 

El shakes her head, still staring straight ahead.

“Are you sure?” he presses. She only nods in response; anything to get him to stop speaking, because she can feel herself on the verge of tears now. If she has to actually open her mouth and respond, she just knows she won’t be able to hold anything back.

Mike scoots over to her gingerly. He winds an arm around her shoulders slowly, like he wants to give her the option to move away, but El can’t deny herself the comfort that the gesture brings. She doesn’t lean into him, like she usually would, but she relaxes just the slightest bit. And watching him, out of the corner of her eye, she thinks that even if she can’t have him the way that she wants, at least she has his friendship. At least she has his arm around her. 

It’s not quite enough, but it’ll have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... how do we feel? if im being honest writing this chapter felt a bit like pulling teeth and i'm not entirely proud of the final product. but let me know how all of you liked it! kudos/comments make my day so thank you so much to those of you who leave those.  
> ps i promise y'all i don't hate nancy and this won't be the last time she'll make an appearance!!


	8. self-sabotage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok first of all i just want to say im so sorry for how long this chapter took... i did not mean to leave this fic un-updated for two months but something about writing this chapter was SO HARD. i probably rewrote it 4 different times, and i'm still not happy with it, but i'm so sick of it by now that i'm just saying fuck it and posting it.  
> thank you so much to anyone still reading this! i appreciate your kudos and comments and bookmarks so so much.

Mike has a plan when he shows up at El’s house.

It’s simple, really. He figures that they need to be what they were before—best friends; nothing more, nothing less. And after hours of thinking it over, Mike thinks he knows how to bring them back to that. 

Or, at the very least, he thinks he knows what the first step to that might be.

He’s played it out in his head countless times by now, every miniscule detail already accounted for—from the words he’ll say to what he’ll do in case something goes wrong.

_ But nothing  _ **_can_ ** _ go wrong, _ he reminds himself as he stops his bike in front of El’s house. He stares through the living room window, at El, who he can just barely make out through the gauzy curtains.  _ Nothing can go wrong, because you have a plan, and you’re going to stick to it. _

“Right,” he whispers to himself, taking his suddenly damp palms off the handle and wiping them on his jeans. “Just stick to the plan.” He leans his bike against the fence and wearily makes his way to the front door.

With every step, he loses a little more of the resolve that his plan gave him. A horrible thought occurs to him:  _ the closer he gets to that door, the closer he gets to permanently losing any chance that he might have had with El. _

But he’s already at the door as he realizes that. And before the traitorous, second-guessing part of him has a chance to do more damage, he reaches out rings the doorbell decisively.  _ This is what’s best, _ he reminds himself. 

He tries so, so hard to believe it.

The door swings open. 

“Hi,” El says with a smile. Her voice is rich with promise—of what, exactly, he doesn’t want to dwell on. It’s intoxicating, reels him in enough that he doesn’t even think before responding with an automatic, almost breathless, “Hey.”

The air between them seems to fill with something, swelling as they stare at each other. Mike senses this right away.

“So… are you gonna let me in now?” he asks, perhaps too suddenly. But he thinks it did the job. The tension between them has lessened considerably, the moment (if you could even call it that) broken.

“My bad,” El blushes, stepping aside to let him in. They walk in silence to the living room. With every step, Mike feels his nerves notch up another level. He’s glad for when they finally arrive, because it feels like his legs are about to give out when he collapses onto the couch.

As he goes over what he’s about to say in his head again, his eyes drift up absentmindedly. They land on hers.

El can’t have sat down more than a few inches away from him. At this distance, he can make out all the little details of her face, the attentive way she’s looking at him…

…and he’s suddenly panicking, because this is the second time in two days he’s been this close to her, and he doesn’t know if he can take this again, not when he’s trying  _ so hard _ to stop liking her like that.

He must have shown that on his face, because El abruptly moves back, not so subtly putting a bit more space between them. Mike opens his mouth to apologize or maybe explain himself, but El doesn’t give him the opportunity.

“So…” she says, her cheeks flushing red again. Mike realizes she’s waiting for him to say something.

“I just wanted to—” he starts. His voice cracks embarrassingly. He starts over, maybe a little louder than necessary, as if that’ll compensate for the blunder. “I just wanted to say. Thanks for coming to that party with me. Yesterday. I know it was probably super boring for you, but you still came. So… thanks.”

Panic has a chokehold around him. All he can do is try his best to force out the words. And the worst part is that he can  _ hear _ that in his voice—the awkward, almost detached quality of his tone, how he sounds like he’s reading from a script… 

He’s far too chickenshit to look at El for fear of her reaction.

“Mike, I—” he hears her try to say, but her voice brings on a fresh wave of nerves. He scrambles to finish his speech.

“And, well, I just wanted to say, thanks for being such a good friend. It means a lot to me.”

Mike isn’t sure what reaction he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t the horrible silence that follows. He wonders momentarily whether he should risk a glance up at her, but the very thought fills him with the urge to vomit. So for what feels like an eternity—though it can’t have been more than thirty seconds—he sits absolutely still, eyes boring so hard into the floor that he half-expects a hole to open up.

And then El finally speaks up. “Yeah. Of course. No problem.”

Her tone tells him nothing, and it takes a few more moments for him to gather the courage to look up at her.

He can’t decide if he’s disappointed or relieved when he sees that her face looks perfectly neutral. She isn’t even looking at him; her eyes are focused on the TV—and, well, why would she have any other reaction? She’s not the one in love with her best friend. 

And that’s when it occurs to Mike:  _ he’s _ not supposed to care, either. 

So he does his best to school his expression into one mirroring hers, so that when she looks back, she doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

“Well… do you want to start the movie? Which one did you choose?” Mike asks. He wonders if she can hear in his tone how painful it was for him to get the words out.

“I thought we could marathon the Star Wars prequels,” she replies.

“Oh, my favorites,” he says, trying for a smile to alleviate the tension. It’s more of a grimace, but her gaze doesn’t linger very long.

“Yeah, I know,” she says as she plays the movie. 

They lapse into silence, and this time it isn’t quite as suffocating. They’re both lost in their own thoughts, neither really watching the movie. 

Now that all is said and done, Mike feels a little disappointed that his feelings didn’t just… well, vanish into thin air. For all the anguish he put himself through, coming here and destroying his own chance at being with her, he wishes that it had been enough to get his traitorous heart to right itself.

But he can’t stop it from skipping a beat when she allows him to wrap his arm around her, lets him pull her close enough that he can ruffle her hair with his breathing.

He knows that this is the exact opposite of what he should be doing—that he’s only making things harder for himself—but in the moment, he can’t quite bring himself to care. 

El has that effect on him.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Mike realizes belatedly that Sunday was the easy part. 

Sure, ruining his own chances with the girl he likes was hardly a walk in the park. The good thing about movie marathons, though, is that they leave very little room for talking. For a few hours, he and El were able to at least pretend that everything was normal again.

But that’s not a luxury they get once Monday rolls around.

Mike decides to bike to school by himself rather than carpool with Lucas and Dustin like he usually does. He’s well aware of what a coward this makes him—yes, he prefers biking twenty minutes in the chilly weather to the prospect of facing El this morning—but at least he’s putting off what he knows is bound to be an awkward encounter.

His first few classes pass in a blur. He throws himself into his work in an effort to keep his mind off El, but it doesn’t assuage the feelings of anxiety mounting inside of him. They’re approaching what he can only describe as critical mass when the bell for morning break rings. He feels about ready to have a nervous breakdown as he walks sullenly out of his classroom.

“Mike!” he hears from down the hall. It’s Will, who’s at his side in seconds.

“Hey,” Mike says with a measure of relief that’ll probably confuse Will. He’s just glad that he doesn’t have to be alone with his turbulent emotions right now.

Will seems uninterested in pleasantries. “So? Where were you this morning?”

“I felt like biking today,” Mike explains shortly. 

“Why?” Will presses.

“Jesus, Will!” Mike says, casting an irritated sidelong glance at his friend. “Why do you care so much? I wasn’t here in the morning for  _ one day _ and now—”

He stops mid-sentence as someone turning the corner collides with him. 

“Shoot, sorry, I should’ve been looking—” he starts to say, turning his head and reaching out to brace himself when he realizes who it is. He jerks his hand back instinctively.

“Mike,” El says. She glances down, and his eyes follow her line of sight until they land on a haphazard pile of notebooks and textbooks. She must have dropped them when they bumped into each other.

“My bad,” he says awkwardly. He bends down to help her gather her stuff, but she does too, and their heads bang together.

“Leave it,” El says, wincing as she rubs her head. She won’t look at him, and maybe that’s a good thing, because he’s positively  _ burning _ with embarrassment.

“I can help,” he offers lamely, knees still awkwardly bent so that he’s halfway between standing up straight and crouching. 

“It’s fine, really,” she says, clearly in a hurry to pick her things up. 

Mike awkwardly straightens up again. “Sorry,” he tells her again as she stands.

“It’s okay, Mike.” El says again. When they make eye contact, she smiles at him a little uncertainly, like she, too, isn’t quite sure where they stand with each other.

He wishes he could tell her.

“Well… I’ll see you at lunch,” she says after a moment of awkward silence. She doesn’t wait for his response before brushing past him.

Will clears his throat next to him, making Mike jump. He kind of forgot he was there.

“That was painful to witness,” his friend says solemnly. “Like, seriously agonizing. And I was there both times Lucas broke his wrist.”

Mike pinches the bridge of his nose. “Thanks for letting me know, Will.”

“It was like excruciating, watching you two try to talk like regular people,” Will continues, ignoring Mike. “And—”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Mike cuts him off. “Can we change the subject, please?”

Will gives him a wry look that says,  _ Not a chance. _ “I was gonna ask you about how that party went Saturday, but I think I just got my answer.”

Mike is quiet this time—he doesn’t summon a retort, or even shoot Will a dirty look. Instead, a feeling of sadness overtakes him as the consequences of the party fully sink in. 

_ Things won’t ever be the same again, and it’s all his fault for putting her in that situation in the first place. _

Will seems to pick up on this. His expression shifts instantly. 

“Are you good?” he asks gently, his face now almost nauseatingly sympathetic.

“Yes,” Mike replies shortly. He doesn’t want to do anything to garner Will’s pity. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. “You haven’t told anyone about the party, have you?”

“No, but—”

“Good,” Mike says. “Don’t.”

“I won’t,” Will tells him. “But don’t you think—”

“Don’t worry about me and El,” Mike interrupts. “We’ll be okay. We always are.”

The bell rings just then, signaling the end of break. Mike hitches his backpack up and tries to put on a brave face. Will doesn’t look like he buys it.

“Listen, you don’t have to—”

“See you at lunch, Will,” Mike says loudly. He turns on his heel and heads toward his class, leaving his friend to watch him walk away. 

All Will can do is wonder:  _ What the hell happened at that party? _

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

But Mike is wrong.

He and El don’t just magically go back to being okay again.

For a while, there are only awkward nods at each other in the mornings, fleeting glances in the hallways, short and meaningless conversations over text, halfhearted invitations to do the things they used to do (and the polite declining that follows). For a while, there is no Mike and El—just Mike and El and the Party. For a while, it’s like they simply… aren’t best friends anymore.

Mike read somewhere that it takes you twenty-one days to get fully used to something—to become so accustomed that it doesn’t even faze you anymore. 

And yet September fades into October, and October creeps along until it’s nearly over. And  _ still _ this void between him and El still doesn’t get any easier to bear.

But then comes the last Friday of the month, when everything changes.

He’s at lunch with his friends, pushing his food around with a fork listlessly as they chatter on, when Dustin arrives.

He slams his tray down on the table as he slips into his seat, loudly enough that the rest of them flinch.

“What—?” Lucas begins, frowning, but Dustin doesn’t let him finish.

“You will not  _ believe _ what just happened,” he says in a voice thrumming with excitement. He pauses for dramatic effect, glancing around the table at the rest of them with a nearly manic gleam in his eyes.

“What?” El asks.

“I just got asked,” Dustin announces proudly. He looks around, obviously waiting for a reaction, but he’s met with blank stares. All his pomp seems to evaporate on the spot. 

“Well,” he huffs, “you could at least  _ pretend _ to be happy for me.”

The rest of them exchange confused looks. 

“What are you talking about?” asks Will.

“Yeah, what do you mean, you got ‘asked?’” Lucas says.

Dustin narrows his eyes in disbelief. “Homecoming, you dinguses,” he says, like it’s obvious. “You know, the dance happening  _ tonight? _ What else could I be talking about?”

“Homecoming?” Max repeats. “I forgot that was a thing.”

“Me too,” Lucas says. “Are we going this year?”

“I’m down, it sounds like fun,” she grins. “I’ll need to find a dress, though, and—”

Dustin clears his throat, glaring at the two of them. “You know, this would usually be the part where you congratulate me?”

Max rolls her eyes as Lucas sheepishly says, “Congratulations, man. Who’s the girl?”

“Tara H., from Drama,” Dustin answers. His voice takes on an uncharacteristically dreamy quality, and they all groan. He pointedly ignores them.

“So, I guess it’ll be me and Tara and you and Max this Friday, then, huh?” he says to Lucas. “Or are any of you coming, too?”

Mike looks down sharply, suddenly focusing very intently on his food. Dustin isn’t about to let him off that easily, though.

“Mike?” he asks, elbowing him. “Are you going?”

Mike looks up slowly, and without thinking, his eyes flick toward El.

She’s watching him.

He wants so badly to know what she’s thinking. 

“Well,” he begins, looking right back at her, “I don’t really have a date.”

It’s not exactly an invitation—he doesn’t really know  _ what _ it is. Maybe he’s just being this bold because she hasn’t given him this much attention in weeks. 

In any case, he notices her eyebrows fly up; how she quickly breaks eye contact, shaking her head almost imperceptibly to herself. And that’s when he knows there’s nothing more to be said.

“You don’t need a date!” Dustin says benevolently, jolting him back to the present. 

Will nods. “Yeah, we can go just to have a good time. As friends.”

“Friends?” El repeats. “That sounds fun. I’ll go, too, then.”

She isn’t looking at Mike, and her voice is completely neutral, but somehow it still feels like the words were said in response to him. He glares down at his food, trying not to flush red from the shame and embarrassment burning a hole in his chest.

“So, it’s settled then? We’re all going?” Will says, looking around the table.

Dustin nudges Mike. “Come on, man, it’ll be fun!”

For a second, he almost says yes, but as he looks up, his eyes land on El again. 

El, who isn’t even looking at him. Who clearly couldn’t care less whether he goes or doesn’t. 

“No,” he says immediately. “No, you guys can go without me. I’ll probably have to… watch Holly or something this evening.”

None of his friends push the matter. He thinks they all know what’s been going on. They probably feel sorry for him.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Lucas isn’t the meddler of the Party—that’s always been his girlfriend. And he’s more than happy leaving her to it. Usually, Max’s overstepping and nosiness are just what it takes for the Party to maintain a certain level of harmony.

But the shit going on between Mike and El?

Well, that’s beyond even  _ Max’s _ abilities.

So when the bell signaling the end of the day rings, Lucas makes a split-second decision. Instead of heading to the parking lot like he usually does, he takes a detour toward Mike’s last period in the library.

Mike doesn’t even notice him waiting outside the entrance. Lucas has to clear his throat for him to turn around and realize he’s there.

“Lucas,” he says, walking up to him. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lucas replies coolly. “You seemed really… lost in thought..”

An uncomfortable silence stretches between them. “My bad,” Mike says awkwardly. “Well… did you need something?”

“I was gonna ask if we could talk about Homecoming.”

Mike’s expression immediately sours at the very mention of the word. “Why?”

Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Well, why aren’t you going?”

Mike bristles. “I told you all already. I don’t have a date.”

“Neither does Will,” Lucas reminds him. “Or El.”

Mike gives him a look that says,  _ Get to the point already. _ Lucas sighs. He’s going to have to try a different angle.

“You’re aware that all of us know exactly what’s going on between you and El, right?” he says. 

Mike’s face contorts into an ugly look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You guys have been unbearable lately,” Lucas says. “Even worse than when you were pretending that you were just friends.”

Mike mouths for words, looking like he has multiple things to say and can’t decide which one to voice first. “What—?”

“You two can’t have a normal conversation anymore,” Lucas says matter-of-factly. “And there’s this weird unresolved tension anytime you so much as  _ look _ at each other. You know this, Mike. We all do. And pretending like it’s not there is only making it worse.”

Mike goes red in the face, and seems to deflate at Lucas’s bluntness. “All right, so all of you know, too. What exactly do you want me to do about it?”

“Well,  _ making up _ would be a good start—”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Did that escape your notice, somehow?” Mike cuts in, the half-hearted anger in his tone unable to mask how wounded he sounds. Lucas’s lips turn down sympathetically.

“Mike,” he says earnestly, “El misses you, too.”

“That’s not true,” Mike scoffs—but Lucas can hear the smallest note of hope in his voice. “How do you know it’s true?”

Lucas suppresses a triumphant smile. It’s working. He’s actually getting through to him.

“You think  _ you’ve _ been miserable the past month? She’s too stubborn to come right out and  _ say _ it, but this isn’t any easier on her than it is on you.” Lucas shakes his head in disbelief. “And you’re the same way. You both hate this distance, but neither of you wants to  _ do _ anything about it.”

“Really?” Mike says quietly. “El is miserable? Because of  _ me _ ?”

“Well, yeah, but she’ll live,” Lucas says, frowning. “But you are, too. And you’ll both continue to be unless you make up.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mike says, his face a little ashen. “But… how? What do I do to make things right?”

“Come to the dance tonight,” Lucas says firmly. “You can get her by herself, and you can talk it out. And then everything will be okay again.”

Mike lets out a dry laugh. “You sound so confident in us.”

“That’s because I am,” Lucas says. “You’ve been best friends your whole lives. It doesn’t just go away because you’ve been distant for a month.”

Mike meets Lucas’s eyes. He still looks weary, but Lucas doesn’t think he’s imagining the hope slowly breaking through. “You think so?”

“I know so,” Lucas replies. He claps a hand on his friend’s shoulder, guiding them both to the hallway exit. “Trust me, all right? You got this.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Damn Lucas’s skills of persuasion, because the confidence they gave Mike this afternoon is completely unearned. 

For a solid four hours, he really did feel good about tonight. He really did feel like he was ready to talk to El. He really did feel that after so many missteps and blunders, today is the day that he pulls himself together and makes things right with El. 

But, now, as he’s on the way to the dance?

… Well, it’s safe to say that that confidence just completely up and left him.

“Mike?” 

Mike turns to look at Will in the driver’s seat. He’s looking at him with a keenness that is a little unsettling.

“Uh… yeah?”

“Are you good? You kinda zoned out there,” Will says. 

“Did I? My bad,” Mike says, wiping his damp palms on his pants. “I’m good. I’m fine.”

Will’s eyes widen just a little, and his lips twist like he’s physically trying to hold back from saying what’s on his mind. “Well, we’re here, is what I was going to tell you.”

Mike blinks and it just then occurs to him that the car stopped moving a minute ago. “Oh. I didn’t even notice.”

Will’s eyebrows knit together. “Look, Mike, if you’re nervous or something, don’t be. It’s gonna be fine. And you don’t actually have to go through with this if you don’t want to, or if you don’t feel ready—”

“What the hell, Will?” comes someone’s voice from outside. Mike and Will both jump.

Lucas appears in the window on the driver’s side. He raps on the glass. “Both of you, hurry up.”

Mike and Will quickly exit the car. Lucas is glaring at Will when Mike comes around to join them on the driver’s side. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lucas says heatedly. 

Will glares right back. “You didn’t drive him here, Lucas. He’s been a ball of nerves all night. It’s the worst possible time for him to talk to El.”

“Nerves?” Mike repeats indignantly. Will kind of hit him on the nail with that one, but he and Lucas don’t need to know that. “What nerves? I’m not nervous. Why would you think that?”

Will ignores him. “He’s not in the right headspace for this, and you would know if you weren’t so focused on—”

“Headspace?” Lucas scoffs. “This isn’t some big test _ , _ you idiot. He just has to talk to El.”

Mike nods jerkily, trying to believe him. “Yeah, Will, I’m fine. Just a little jittery. But not in, like, a bad way—”

Lucas gestures to Mike with his hand, interrupting him. “See? He’s fine.”

Will looks between them like he wants to argue, but seems to decide against it at the last moment. He puts up his hands and shrugs, shaking his head. “Whatever. Do what you want. I obviously can’t stop you. I just have a really bad feeling about this.”

“Really?” Mike says with a level of self-assurance that he definitely doesn’t actually feel.  _ Fake it ‘til you make it, right? _ “Because I, for one, feel great.”

Lucas gives Mike an approving look. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s go.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

El is bored.

Spending her evening fifth-wheeling at a stupid school dance is the last thing she wants to be doing. Honestly, she never should’ve agreed to come at all—but her emotions got the best of her at lunch today, and, well… here she is, sitting by herself at a table, chin propped on her hand as she dully watches her classmates having fun.

It’s all Mike’s fault.

(El has been blaming him for a lot of things recently—which, she’ll admit, has mainly been out of pure, petty spite—but this time, it’s true. This is completely and totally Mike Wheeler’s fault.)

When she recalls lunch earlier today— _ “I don’t have a date,” he said, looking straight at her in a clear invitation _ —she feels a fresh wave of anger.

There’s embarrassment mixed in there, too—embarrassment at the fact that even after he friendzoned her, even after he avoided her for a month… when the question of a date came up, her eyes instinctively flitted to him.

Because as much as she might (want to) hate him right now, and as much as he doesn’t see her the same way,  _ El still likes Mike _ .

In a twisted way, that’s exactly why she’s so upset with him right now. It’s not easy, knowing that Mike still only sees her as a friend. That he just thinks of her as someone who he can take to parties or dances as a date when he wants to. No, it’s the most difficult thing in the world, knowing that when she still feels so deeply for him.

So, yeah, it was a heat of the moment thing, El agreeing to come to Homecoming—her petty way of expressing the tangle of feelings taking up so much space inside her.

She lets out a quiet huff, choosing to distract herself before she can slip into further despair. She pushes her chair back and stands up, scanning the crowd of dancing people for her friends. 

But she realizes that distracting herself must not be in the cards for tonight as her eyes lock on someone at the entrance to the gym.

_ He wasn’t supposed to be here, _ she thinks disbelievingly. But he isn’t a figment of her imagination. Her eyes aren’t deceiving her.

Mike is here, at the dance, and he’s walking toward her.

Her heart climbs into her throat. 

Around her, nothing changes. The music is still playing, people are still dancing, time is still passing. But it might as well have all faded to nothing, because her vision tunnels to him like a spotlight. 

He comes to a stop maybe a foot or so away from her. His eyes, when she meets them, are wide in what she knows is nervousness. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she replies softly, the unhappiness she was carrying before softening at the sound of his voice. She can’t stand how much of an effect he has on her. “I didn’t think you were coming tonight.”

“I didn’t either,” he says with a short chuckle. His shoulders relax a little at her half-smile. “But… I had something I wanted to ask you.”

El raises her eyebrows. “Yeah?” she says, hoping he’ll ignore her slight voice crack—she’s nervous too, now. What kind of question could he have for her? After a month of them basically avoiding each other, and after the debacle at lunch today, she doubts that it could be anything simple.

“Would you… I mean, do you want to…” Mike begins, his eyes darting around as he searches for the right words. “Do you think we could be friends again?”

Well. El certainly wasn’t expecting  _ that _ to be his question. “Did we ever stop?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

Mike’s eyes widen. “I mean… no, but, you know. Things have been weird. Between us.”

“Right,” El replies simply.

“And I just… I don’t want for them to keep being weird,” Mike says cautiously, carefully assessing her as if he thinks he made her mad. His voice becomes a little desperate when he adds, “I miss you.”

It’s embarrassing how much she at those three words, but she can’t help it. “Me either. And I miss you, too.”

Relief spills over Mike’s face. “So… are we good, now? No more avoiding each other? No more being awkward?” he says hopefully.

El smiles. “Yeah.”

Distantly, she registers how the music being played changes from an upbeat song to a slower one. Then, the lighting grows dimmer, plunging them into soft shadows, and her attention is finally pulled away from Mike. 

Somehow, while she wasn’t paying attention, all single people seem to have left the dance floor. There are only slow-dancing couples left now. El blushes slightly.

She’s about to ask Mike if he wants to get out of here—maybe they can go to Benny’s and catch up; it’s been so long since the last time they did—but when she turns to look at him, he’s staring at her with something unfathomable in his eyes. His expression is a stark difference from the relief that was so palpable on him before. It takes her breath away.

“El,” he says.

“Mike,” she replies uncertainly.

“Do you… wanna dance?” he asks.

The question is like a sucker punch. 

“Dance?” she repeats. Mike nods, chewing his lower lip.

“Yeah,” he says. “Dance.”

For a second, all El wants to say is _yes._ _Yes, of course she’ll dance with him, why did it take him so long to ask her, she’s been waiting for this for her whole life._

But right as the word forms on her tongue, a cynical voice in her head pipes up.

_ Yes, dance with him, and end up right back where you started. In love with your oblivious best friend. _

She closes her mouth.

_ He doesn’t like you like that. He said so himself—couldn’t have made it clearer.  _

She looks away from him.

_ A dance means nothing. An almost-kiss on a bench means nothing. You’re playing yourself. _

“No,” El says quietly.

“What?” Mike says, leaning closer so that he can hear her. Her eyes start to sting.

“No,” she repeats.

Mike blinks. “What?”

She doesn’t trust herself to speak without crying. So she leans into the anger that is crashing over her like a tidal wave, lets it shield her from her sadness.

“Why?” he asks. His voice sounds so incredibly wounded, and it makes her want to yell at him. He’s not allowed to feel hurt. He’s not the one in love with his best friend. 

“Don’t  _ why _ me, Mike,” she seethes. “Don’t even try.”

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “El, I don’t understand, did I do something—?”

El just stares at him, shaking her head. “Are you serious? I knew you were dense, I did, but this is a bit much—”

“Dense?” Mike repeats, narrowing his eyes. “What the fuck, El?”

Now  _ he’s _ angry, and it just adds more fuel to El’s fire. “You heard me. You’re dense, Mike; everyone has to spell everything out for you all the time, and it’s fucking exhausting—”

Mike staggers back like she hit him. That she can make him feel even a fraction of how she feels right now fills El with a grim sort of satisfaction. 

But he isn’t willing to take that lying down. “Yeah? And you always create unnecessary problems, and it’s aggravating as hell for the rest of us, but you don’t see me saying anything—” he snaps. El glares at him.

“Fuck you, Mike,” she says with as much venom as she can muster.

He almost looks surprised for a second, but his expression quickly hardens. They’re both silent for a few seconds as they stare at each other. In the meantime, the slow song changes to a more upbeat one. People file around them back onto the dance floor.

Mike opens his mouth, like he’s going to say something—and dammit, a part of El desperately hopes that he’ll backtrack and say sorry, so that she can, too, and they can pretend like neither of them just said what they did—but he doesn’t. His mouth closes again, settling into an unforgiving line.

“So, it’s like that, then,” he says quietly.

“I guess so,” El replies, looking away from him.

By the time she looks back up again, he’s gone—vanished into the crowd.

El sits back down at her table, and presses the heels of her hands into her eyes as if that’ll stop her tears from falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you thought!!


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